Lavoura Arcaica

Brazilian writer Raduan Nassar published only two books and a book of tales. One of his novels is Lavoura Arcaica, published in 1975. It narrates the story of a Lebanese-Brazilian family in rural Brazil. Andre, the first-person narrator, is the Prodigal Son who has left the family and moved to a city, and who later returns to the family fazenda.

The novel was adapted for the screen in 2001, and was known in English as To the Left of the Father. It was directed by Luiz Fernando Carvalho. A first time director, he was nonetheless widely known as a director of Brazilian soap operas. It won several awards in different film festivals. It divided the critics. Some considered it as a masterpiece, and compared it to the best Luchino Visconti's melodramas. Others criticized it as an example of "exoticism" and called it a soap opera on film. As for my personal opinion, I will only say this: the movie is almost 3 hours long, and I saw it three times in a month, when it was released commercially. Here is one of its famous scenes:

Enjoy!

Yekaterina Golubeva (1966-2011)

A recent post by Clarissa brought back memories of some of my adventures in film festivals. In one of them, in the mid 1990s, I had the chance to meet Yekaterina Golubeva, a gorgeous and talented Russian actress. She was there to present Few of Us, directed by her then husband, Lithuanian director Sharunas Bartas. Few of Us is one of those extreme movie experiences: it takes place in a Siberian village, last a little over an hour and a half, and has no dialogue whatsoever.

She also developed a career in France, where she ended up moving. I had the chance to see her in more "accessible" movies: Leos Carax's Pola Xand Claire Denis' I Can't Sleep. Golubeva's screen presence was intense, captivating and moving. Even though I haven't seen any of her movies in years, I still remember her in fragments of Pola X (an ambitious but ultimately failed movie). So when I read Clarissa's post and started thinking about the festival, I became curious to see what had happened to her career. What I found out, instead, was that she died a week ago. Very sad. So this is a small tribute to an unforgettable actress.

Irrelevant quotes

I openly confess that once in a while, I Google my name. I do it out of vanity, of course, but sometimes you find something rewarding, like an article of yours being quoted by someone else. I've had a few articles that have been published and quoted by other people. What amazes me is that, even though sometimes the quote that they lift from my article is relevant, sometimes is completely irrelevant and they could have gotten something similar from a much better source. What am I talking about?

Let's say I've written an article on a specific noir crime novel, and how it adjusts or not to the conventions of the genre. So I briefly define the genre and how it is different from the analytical mystery novel. Then I find in somebody's else article: as Spanish Prof explains, the noir genre "....." and lists the characteristics I summarized. Using an article of mine to explain the conventions of the genre is ridiculous. Many people has done it better than me. When I enumerated the characteristics in my own essay, I was using and condensing (and quoting, obviously) critics that have done extensive work on it. In a sense, quoting me on the characteristics of the genre is almost lazy: instead of doing your own summary from what the experts say, you just use mine. But I will admit that finding yourself used in somebody's else work is nice.

What about you? Have you had a similar experience? Has somebody ever quoted you to prove how wrong you are (never happened to me, I am not that important)? Are there essays on a specific topic where other scholars quote you often?

Essays for Grad School

This post is for professors who teach at departments with grad programs (Jonathan*, I'm thinking of you). I had a student (she graduated last Spring) who is the first one I've encountered that decided to do a PhD in Spanish. I've blogged about the the advice I gave her on how to choose a PhD in Spanish here. She took a year off, doing other things, but she will be applying to grad programs this Fall. She is really smart, was an excellent student and, as I said in the previous post, I think she will be a good fit. Also, despite the horrendous market, Spanish continues to be one of the few fields in the Humanities where it is reasonably possible to get a tenure track job. Last week, she sent me the essay she intends to submit as a writing manuscript when applying for grad school, and asked me for feedback (it is a re-formulation of a research paper she did for one of my classes).

I am reading the paper, and it is certainly a very good one. It would get an A and I would be impressed in my upper level Lit class. What I have a hard time calibrating, though, is what is expected from a first year Master research paper. I know a lot of my American classmates in grad school struggled with it (undergraduate "licenciaturas" in Argentina are roughly the equivalent of an MA as far as demand goes, so I didn't have that problem). So my question for those of you who have knowledge of graduate students applications is: what is expected from a writing sample from somebody applying with her BA to a PhD program? The paper is in Spanish, just to clarify, but language and grammar is not the problem.

*By the way, Jonathan, she is not applying to KU, so there wouldn't be a conflict of interest if you answer.

Gap in my literary history knowledge

Today I was reading Specular City: Transforming Culture, Consumption, and Space in Buenos Aires, 1955-1973, Laura Podalsky's wonderful study of Argentine's cultural productions that focus on Buenos Aires, between the fall of Peron's presidency and his election again 18 years later. I realized that as much as I know about Argentine literary history, I definitely have a gap there. I've read some of the major canonical works of the period: Julio Cortazar's Hopscotchand Ernesto Sabato's Sobre heroes y tumbas, for example. I've also read a lot about the history of the period, and everything that Rodolfo Walsh has published. There were many names, however, that I've heard about but I've never read: Bernardo Verbitsky, Beatriz Guido or German Rozenmacher.

What about you? If you are a literature professor (or not), do you feel that you have a gap in a particular area? Something you would like to find out more about?

California here I come!

Just bought the tickets for Christmas travel (after my husband told me gas went up 15 cents this week). Los Angeles visiting my in-laws for two weeks, and then 4 days in San Francisco visiting friends. I am one of those people who doesn't see the point of going to the MLA unless I am looking for a job (I prefer LASA), so I will not have to be traveling early January. In fact, I'll be back in my city before the 31st. And for the first time, I will not have to rush to prepare my syllabus for the Spring semester.

So that was the accomplishment of the day...

Spanish Prof and Earthquakes

Since my post Earthquakes and ADD has become the most popular one of these past two weeks, here is another tale of how Spanish Prof experiences earthquakes (sorry for the third person, it feels weird).

Until the Fall 2007, I had never experienced an earthquake. My husband, on the other hand, is from LA, so he is more than used to them. So one day, in the Fall 2007, a few month after moving into the city I am currently living, I am woken up at 5:30 in the morning because everything is shaking. My husband was already awake, working in another room. Sleepy, my first thought was: "Hmmm... I didn't know that there was a train line so close to us, and that trains make such a noise when they pass through." Since I was mostly asleep, when I finished the thought, everything had gone back to normal. So I went back to sleep. The following morning, all my students asked me if I had felt the earthquake (the epicenter was not in my city but a few States away). I connected the dots, and realized that what had interrupted my sleep had been the earthquake.

That night, I went back home and asked my husband: "You were awake during the earthquake. Didn't you notice it?". His answer: "Yes, but I was also half asleep, so I thought: 'This feels like an earthquake. But we are not in Los Angeles, so it can't be an earthquake'. And so I forgot about the whole thing". We are both so slow to react to them, that I hope a serious earthquake never happens in my city.

Eric Cantor and Hurricane Irene

Nobody can say Eric Cantor (R-VA) isn't consistent. Eric Cantor has made deficit reduction one of his main obsessions. Yesterday, he said that any funds directed towards emergency aid for potential Hurricane Irene damages should be offset by spending cuts somewhere else. Eric Cantor is from Virginia, a state that could suffer from Irene's wrath. In fact, (Republican) Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has declared a state of emergency.

Eric Cantor's position is just the extreme manifestation of the budget deficit obsession of Republicans. This time, however, the people he represents could all suffer the consequences. I wonder whether Cantor will back down, or how will Virginians, if they are affected by the Hurricane, take their representative's position. This is the Republican Hostage-Taking strategy taken to its fullest, most extreme, logical consequence. It says a lot about the people conducting it. But more than giving my personal opinion on what a SOB Cantor is, I will like to see how this play out within his own people. Of course, I hope I don't have to see it and the Hurricane doesn't do major damage to any State of the United States.

So, when do the characters go to Buenos Aires?

"Wonderfully evocative and cynical, it captures Buenos Aires with a delicate precision,"* says the blurb on the back cover of the crime novel I started reading today.

Forced to stay home while most of my material is in my office (and it wouldn't have made sense to carry back home with me), I started reading a crime novel that supposedly takes place in Buenos Aires. Since I'm working with representations of urban spaces, this was one of the reasons I decided to read the novel. Well, 60 pages and 2 dead bodies later, all the characters are still in a small town in Southern Argentina. I will abandon the novel if they don't make it into Buenos Aires by page 100.

*The blurb said so, in English. I am reading an English translation. When I was in Buenos Aires, I tried to find a copy of the novel in Spanish, and it was impossible (and the novel is from 2007). It has been translated into English, and it's widely available (I bought it for $5 used in Amazon). There is a lot to be said about the circulation and availability of books in different markets.

Planning, planning, planning...

This is not a post about personal planning. There are plenty of people who write about it better than me, and who are better than me at implementing in. Instead, this is a rant about the poor planning skills of certain administrators. After the 2008 financial crisis, my institution (very tuition-driven) started admitting 50% more students every freshmen class. So if in 2007 the entering class was 500 (numbers made up), the following year and the years after it the entering class was 750. That caused a lot of problems that were addressed decently OK by the administration: classroom space, dorms, new faculty, etc. What apparently nobody thought about was computer network. And that so many extra people could overload the network. Well, today the network crashed. I have no idea how long it will take them to solve it, but so far, I've wasted an hour and a half of my time, going to my office doing a little until the crash, and then coming back. Grrrr....

Earthquakes and ADD

A practical example of ADD, and how it affects people differently. By now, you are all aware of yesterday's earthquake in the East Coast. I don't live in the East Coast nor close to it, but the earthquake was "apparently" felt in my city. And I say "apparently" because I didn't feel a thing. Here is a scene that went on in my apartment yesterday.

I'm reading in the kitchen table, and my husband is in the room next door in the computer. Suddenly, I hear him saying: "Oh, so it was an earthquake"

Me: "???"

Husband: "All the shaking of an hour ago"

Me: "????"

Husband: "You didn't notice how everything was shaking?"

Me: "No, not really. And by the way, why are you checking on it an hour later?"

Husband: "Oh, I meant to check it right after it happened, but I got distracted and I forgot. I only remember because at least 5 of our local friends have some post about it on Facebook"

So there you have it. My husband gets distracted by anything, and completely forgets what he is going to do next, even if an earthquake just happened (I have a mild version of that, too). In my case, I hyper-focus on something so intensely that I'm oblivious to the outside world. Even if it's an earthquake. But my project is coming great!

Dear Art Cinema Organization

There is a fairly popular website called Rottentomatoes.com. It aggregates reviews for movies from different film critics. When you are considering a specific movie for programming, maybe you should check said website to see if the movie is any good. If a movie has only 36% positive reviews, chances are it is awful. Like the movie you screened today. It was my first time going to your activities (a 25 minutes drive discourages me). I don't think I will be back. And I want my money back! Grrr...

Personal animosity in Academia

It's not exactly breaking news to say that in Academia, where a lot of big egos can accumulate, a lot of people don't like each other for a variety of reasons. Usually, though, unless it is an intellectual argument, they keep it (semi) private (I do remember, however, one big dinner at a LASA conference where a Very Important Scholar in the field, after a few too many drinks, started mocking another Very Important Scholar in the field that was not present). Today I found out that Beatriz Sarlo and Josefina Ludmer, two of the most famous Argentine intellectuals, don't like each other. Or so it seems. This isn't just petty gossip that somebody told me. I wouldn't be reproducing it otherwise. I just read an interview to Beatriz Sarlo published in Revista La Biblioteca (link to full content, slow to load, you can find the interview on pages 10-25). The person doing the interview asks Sarlo (p.23):

¿Cómo ves la idea de 'isla urbana' que usa Josefina Ludmer para analizar la literatura contemporánea? [What do you think of the concept of "urban island" that Josefina Ludmer uses to analyze contemporary literature?]

And Sarlo answers:

La verdad que no conozco lo que Ludmer está haciendo sobre ciudades . . . no vi el artículo [de Ludmer] sobre ciudad, y voy a buscarlo ya mismo. En todos mis libros cito a Josefina Ludmer, para conjurar la idea de que no cito a las personas que me desprecian. [Honestly, I don't know what Ludmer is writing about cities . . . I didn't see [Ludmer's] article about the city, but I am going to look for it right now. In all my books I quote Josefina Ludmer, to dispel the idea that I do not quote those people who despise me]

Wow...just wow...that is nasty sarcasm. Don't know what else to say, but I was speechless after I read that answer.

A few comments on some of the Argentine movies

As I promised in the last post about Argentine movies, I will write a few lines on some selected movies and/or directors from the list. I've written about many of them before (check the film category), so I'll try to not to repeat myself.

-Andres Di Tella: Montoneros, una historia and La Television y yo. Two great documentaries. One about the guerrilla group. The other one takes a personal story as an excuse to trace the fall on the industrialization project in Argentina.

-Albertina Carri: Los Rubios. One of the most talked about and controversial documentaries of the last decade. The director, Carri, is a daughter of "disappeared" during the Argentine dictatorship. In this "documentary", she tries to trace the fate of her parents, to know her own history.

Damian Szifron: Tiempo de Valientes (On probation) A great exercise in genre, a really funny comedy. A buddy-buddy cop movie (think Lethal Weapon), but here, instead of two very different cops teamed together, it's a neurotic, depressive cop and his shrink.

-Daniel Burman. Stories of the Jewish community in Buenos Aires. Not bad, but a little costumbrista for my taste.

-Ariel Rotter. What happens when you watch too many Wong Kar-Wai movies. Think of Solo por hoy as a minor version of Fallen Angels, set in Buenos Aires. An exercise in style, but not a great movie.

- Diego Lerman: Tan de Repente. Loosely based on Cesar Aira's La prueba

-Enrique Piñeyro: Whisky Romeo Zulu. Piñeyro, the director, used to be a commercial plane pilot. He worked for the company LAPA. He sent an open-ed letter to a newspaper in the mid-90s, denouncing the poor upkeep of the planes, and saying that if nothing was done, a terrible accident was inevitable. Well, he was fired. As you can imagine, soon there after, tragedy stroke. Enrique Piñeyro is the director, screenwriter and main actor of this fictionalized account of the tragedy. If you can get over an unnecessary side plot with a love story, it's an impressive movie

- Alejandro Agresti. Used to be Argentine's cult director in the 90s. Big influence to the new generation of Argentine filmmakers. Sadly, Buenos Aires Viceversa is his masterpiece. He went downhill after it.

- Martin Rejtman. Minimalism in movies. Very important figure, but not my personal taste.


These are some comments that randomly occur to me. If you have any question about a specific movie, don't hesitate to ask.

"Agustin Tosco Propaganda" - Adrian Caetano, a political manifesto

This will be in Spanish, since I am not a good translator. Excerpted from Caetano, Adrian. "Agustin Tosco Propaganda." El Amante 4.41 (Julio 1995): 50.

"En contra del llamado cine argentino y a favor del pueblo y del cine propiamente dicho . . . preferimos la honestidad, la austeridad, la simplicidad. Pedimos la cabeza de los pomposos, hipocritas y cipayos, como si el cine fuera patrimonio de alguien o de algun pais. . . Defender el lenguaje clasico ante la modernidad pasatista . . . Amar el terror, el western, el policial, la ciencia ficcion . . . como contracultura de una falsa intelectualidad impuesta en las pantallas. Reclamamos como espectadores, ante los realizadores del sistema, un cambio contundente en la narrativa, ser mas humildes y aprender algo de cine. . ."

Bombastic and populist, certainly. Resonances of François Truffaut's famous article "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français" on Cahiers du Cinema. Caetano's essay was published before he released his first feature film. And pedantic as it may sound 15 years later, it rang so true at the time it was published. Argentine cinema had become this "intellectual", "artsy" for export piece of crap (with exceptions, of course). In the movies, actors talked as if they were in a theater play. And, as uneven as he can be, Caetano has remained faithful to his writing.

Contemporary Argentine Movies - 1990-2010 - Second part

Here is the second installment of the post about what Argentinean movies I would buy for my library if I had the money. Again, this is not necessarily a personal endorsement of the movies per se. My opinion on them varies greatly. I just believe that they are essential to the past 20 years of Argentine movie history.

-Andres Di Tella

Montoneros, una historia
La Television y yo

-Albertina Carri

Los Rubios

-Pablo Trapero

Mundo Grua
El bonaerense

-Damian Szifron

Tiempo de Valientes (On probation)
El fondo del mar

-Daniel Burman

Esperando al Mesias
El abrazo partido

-Fabian Bielinsky

Nueve Reinas
El aura

-Marcelo Piñeyro

Plata Quemada
Kamchatcka

-Juan Jose Campanella

El hijo de la novia
El secreto de sus ojos

-Lucrecia Martel

La cienaga
La niña santa

-Lisandro Alonso

La libertad
Los muertos
Liverpool

-Ariel Rotter

Solo por hoy

- Paula Hernandez

Herencia

-Ana Poliak

La fe del volcan
Que vivan los crotos

-Juan Villegas

Sabado

- Celina Murga

Ana y los otros

-Sandra Gugliotta

Un dia de suerte

-Veronica Chen

Vagon Fumador

-Fito Paez (yes, the musician. I'll make an exception and say that this is one of the most over the top melodramas I've seen in a long time. A failure in the end, but an interesting and ambitious one)

Vidas Privadas

- Mariano Llinas

Balnearios
Historias Extraordinarias

- Diego Lerman

Tan de Repente

- Jorge Gaggero

Cama Adentro

- Enrique Piñeyro

Whisky Romeo Zulu
Fuerza Aerea Sociedad Anonima

These movies complete the series for now. Later, I will write a few lines on some of them, as a guide. In addition, if you are really interested in Argentine cinema, a good idea is to try to get issues of the first ten years of the film magazine El Amante. It started publishing in 1991, and it was highly influential in the development of new approaches to film. It is still being published, but the magazine has changed hands and the original writers, with a few exceptions, are not there anymore. The period 1991 - 2001 is probably its best. And I would never advocate illegal downloading, obviously, but look around on the Internet and you will find samples.

Publishing, timing and luck.

A few days ago, Jonathan wondered what role does pure luck play in an academic career. In my opinion, not too much, but don't discount it. Sometimes, it happens. Here is an example:

Earlier this year, I submitted an essay to a peer-reviewed journal. It was accepted in June with only some minor revisions asked, and I got the final acceptance two weeks ago. It will be in print in a few months. The essay analyses a novel from a fairly famous Argentine writer. This person, however, is better known for his public persona as an "intellectual" and for his essays (not academic essays, but in the tradition of the genre). He also writes fiction, but his novels from the past 20 years are anything but remarkable. His earlier novels, though, are wonderful. These novels often get mentioned in passing in articles, but there have been very few academic articles specifically about them. My academic article focuses on one of his early novels.

Today, I was reading an academic book that was published a month ago (so it was published AFTER I submitted my manuscript). The author is an up-and-coming star in my field (it's hir first book, several articles published in all the top journals, recently tenured at an R1). I see that part of a chapter is a study of the same novel I wrote about, so I read it. And I found out that hir analysis is pretty similar to mine. Now, to clarify things, s/he hasn't published any article about that novel nor is there any manuscript, draft or else on the Internet about it. Same applies to me. It was simple coincidence. I felt odd. On one side, I felt proud in an "great minds think alike" sort of way. Then, I realized that if I hadn't sent the article when I did, if I had waited six month, I wouldn't have been able to publish it, because what I wanted to say would had already been said. In this particular case, it was timing and sheer luck that helped me get the article published. I don't know if there is a moral to the story, except don't procrastinate, but it happens. And I consider myself a lucky person

Contemporary Argentine Movies - 1990-2010 - Part I

Because of a conversation on another post, I started thinking what Contemporary Argentinean movies I would try to buy for my library if I had the money. Here is a provisional list I came up with. As a disclaimer, I am not necessarily endorsing them as good movies. In fact, there are few movies in this list I really hate, there are many I find OK or mediocre, and there are others I think are outstanding. So this is not a list of my personal taste, but of what I consider to be representative of Argentina's cinematography of the past 20 years. I also have no idea whether they are easy to find or not. I imagine some are, and some are not. So here is a tentative list:

- Alejandro Agresti

El acto en cuestión
Buenos Aires, viceversa

-Adolfo Aristarain

Un lugar en el mundo
Martin (Hache)

-Nicolas Saad, Mariano de Rosa et al.

Mala Epoca

-Esteban Sapir

Picado Fino

-Bruno Staganaro e Israael Adrian Caetano

Pizza, Birra, Faso

-Israel Adrian Caetano

Bolivia
Un oso rojo
Cronica de una fuga

- Martin Rejtman

Rapado
Silvia Prieto
Los guantes mágicos

-Lita Stantic

Un muro de silencio

-Marco Bechis

Garage Olimpo

- Cristian Bernard y Flavio Nardini

76 89 03

-Leonardo Favio

Gatica, el mono.

OK, this is the first part of the installment. So don't get upset if your favorite movie/director is not on the list. Just stay tuned for the second part.

Punk Rock and the London riots

My frequent readers already know how much I love punk rock. In fact, I have bragged about having seen The Ramones in concert 7 times. I love U.S punk rock, but I've always found British punk rock better. They were a clear off-spring of a certain historical period, and the lyrics of the best groups to come out of from the era were more politicized (The Clash, in particular). Focused on the trajectory of the Sex Pistols, Julian Temple's The Filth and the Furyis a wonderful portrait of an era.

When the London riots started in August, 2011, I couldn't help but connecting them to England in the late 1970s. The song "London's Burning" by The Clash came to mind. The Clash was the most politicized of the British punk rock groups and, in my opinion, London Callingis the best punk album ever. Yes, better than anything the Sex Pistols have ever done. I don't know if by coincidence (I'm sure it was prepared before the riots erupted), the British music magazine NME had The Clash on the cover on the issue that came out when the riots erupted. I think this weekend I will take some time to re-read passages of England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond, my favorite book about British punk rock. In the meantime, here is The Clash performing "London's Burning" live in 1978:

An incentive for students - Bliss spa treatments

Yesterday, I received in the mail my favorite beauty catalog. It is my favorite not because of its products, but because their descriptions are non-sensical to the point of beauty. I am talking about the Bliss catalog. I have written a post before giving examples of the gems it contains. This one doesn't disappoint either:

La Mer products: a whole line of them contain the Miracle Broth,

a bio-fermentation process that harnesses sound and light over a period of 3-4 months, resulting in a compound greater than the sum of its parts.

For a mere $145, you can get the eye-cream. A regenerating serum will set you back $250. But hey, no other brand can brag about using the Miracle Broth. I'm sure that Chicken Broth won't have the same results.

However, that is not the point of this post. I wanted to let you know, my academic readers, that Bliss is now offering a 20% discount in all its spa treatments to any student with an A paper. What could be better than that to motivate your students? Bust your ass on my paper, and then you get to have an overpriced massage and pamper yourself. According to the fine print, to receive the discount,

you must present any form of test, report, or similar with a grade of A- or higher.

Unfortunately, the locations of the spa will preclude most of us to use it as a tool to improve students' grades. I live 6 hours away from the closest one. But if you leave near any of them, now you know. No trick is of the table to motivate your students. It's beneficial to them and to you.

Useless facts that will give you a good excuse in front of your students.

See post below. Blogger is screwing up with the updates

Useless facts that will give you a good excuse in front of your students.

...or at least, distract the conversation. Who among us hasn't spilled coffee on a student assignment? I know I have, plenty of times. A mix of tiredness and clumsiness, and boom...there goes the coffee. Right on top of the composition. Or the research paper. I've always felt slightly embarrassed when I returned those assignments, apologizing to the student for my mistake. Now, thanks to NPR, instead of apologizing, you can explain your student the scientific reason behind those coffee rings. That's right. Have you ever noticed that a coffee spilled on paper doesn't leave a uniform stain, but a coffee ring? Scientist have finally figured out why this happens.

According to the NPR article,

The scientists who cracked the problem weren't initially studying the coffee ring effect at all. Peter Yunker and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania were studying how different-shaped particles — like spheres, egg-shaped, or even more elongated particles — pack together when the liquid they are in evaporates.

So they started with liquids with spherical particles, and when they evaporated, they formed coffee rings. That, however, didn't happen with liquids that had elongated particles. This, explains the article,

. . . was the aha moment: Maybe it was the shape of the particles that were responsible for the coffee ring effect. Coffee does have particles in it, but Yunker didn't know whether they were spherical or not.

So he did what any good scientist would do: "We went down to the building coffee machine, put 35 cents in, got a cup of coffee, went back upstairs to the microscope, put it on a slide, took a look, and, at least on the micron scale, the particles that we saw were spherical in shape," he says.

See . . . now, if you ever encounter yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to apologize for stained assignments, you can ask your student: "Don't you find it strange that it is a ring and not a uniform stain? Do you know why this happens?" After your student looks at you as if you have gone definitely loony, you can proceed with the explanation. Then, you will acquire quite a reputation. And you will never have to apologize to your students again.

Just a small contribution to the academic community...

Research assistants

I was never a research assistant while I was in grad school (paid my way through with a combination of TAs and fellowships). I remember one year, when my department had an open line, they made an offer and the candidate NEEDED to have a research assistant. The candidate didn't get it, because my grad school didn't have the money for one (the person still took the job, I guess it wasn't that important after all). I never really understood why a professor would want to have one: for me, doing the research, finding bibliography and reading it myself is half of the thrill of the research. I probably would never trust somebody else to be as throughout (or obsessive) as I can be (a side benefit of ADD). And I certainly would never ask a research assistant to read and summarize the articles for me (I know that some professors do it). You never know what connection you will make while reading something, what brain cell will light up.

Yesterday, however, I discovered why I would want a research assistant: photocopies. I spent 45 minutes doing photocopies of books I've asked through Interlibrary Loan, and the only reason I quit was because I got to bored. I still have piles of things to photocopy. This will probably happen a lot this semester. So now I do want a research assistant: somebody to photocopy the material I need. I'm seriously thinking about paying a student out of my own pocket to do it, if it takes too much time every week. Do you think it would be a good idea?

College level Spanish textbooks

I recently wrote about college level Spanish textbooks for language classes. In the previous post, I complained about my Introductory Level Spanish Textbook (the second year textbooks are OK). Coincidentally, the Spanish language coordinator in my department has decided to start a process of reviewing and/or changing Spanish textbooks for first and second year classes. She has asked for everybody's input.

I've heard good things about Anda! (both for the Elementary and the Intermediate level). Has anybody used it? Have you heard anything about it? What textbooks do you use? Are you happy with them? Which Spanish textbooks would you recommend, both for the Elementary and the Intermediate level? Any suggestion is welcome

Montoneros, a Argentinean guerrilla group

In a previous post, I briefly mentioned that lately, I have been reading a lot about the Argentinean guerilla group Montoneros. Montoneros started in the late 1960s, early 1970s, as an off-shot of radicalized social justice Catholic groups. The story of the organization and of individual members fascinates me on different levels. On a personal level, although my parents did not belong to it, their generation were their main members, and many ended up kidnapped, tortured and killed during the 1976 - 1983 dictatorship. It is a period of time my parents don't like to talk about too much. Too many friends died, too many lives that although survived the period were never the same. I keep finding things about my family even until today.

At a more intellectual level, the story of Montoneros is still a taboo in Argentina's history. It is a very complicated story, with an organization that started very idealistically and then developed into a military organization. Their leaders, especially Mario Firmenich, were arrogant, and some of their orders sent many members to a certain death. On the other hand, while it is easy to criticize the organization in hindsight, and from a democratic liberal perspective, it is necessary to understand that for the logic of the period, any attempt to change and better the Argentine society had been met with coup d'etats and repression. Therefore, it's not hard to understand why thousands of young people felt that the armed struggle was the only way for a better society. So what have I been reading?

The best academic book on the subject is still Richard Gillespie's Montoneros, Soldados de Peron. However, I wanted more subjective accounts of the period. That is what makes the whole story fascinating. Here are some suggestions:

Andres Di Tella's Montoneros, una historia is a controversial but mesmerizing DVD documentary of a former member, and the hostility she found from her former group-mates when she decided to leave the organization. It is really superior to another DVD about Montoneros, David Blaustein's Cazadores de utopías, a Manichean portrait of young idealized fighters against evil forces.

In El tren de la victoria, Cristina Zucker narrates her family history. She is the daughter of a pretty famous actor, and her brother belonged to Montoneros and is among the disappeared by the Argentine dictatorship. She never belonged to it, but manages to portray in detail the atmosphere of the decade and the logic that lead her brother into a mission where he would certainly die.

Marcelo Larraquy's Fuimos Soldados is a journalistic account of what has been called the "Counteroffensive" operation, when many members that had managed to go into exile decided to clandestinely come back to Argentina in an attempt to overthrown the dictatorship. Of course, they were capture within days of their arrival. It is not great, but it's worth reading it.

Finally, there are many testimonies about the dictatorship and those who suffered under it. A fascinating book I've read recently is Jose Pablo Feinmann's Timote, a fictionalized recreation of Montoneros' first big action: the kidnap and assassination of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu in 1970. Aramburu had participated in the 1955 military coup that overthrew Peron, and then ordered the murder without trial of 27 people that in 1956 had attempted a failed rebellion against the dictatorship. Timote recreates the dialogues between the old general and the Montoneros who are "prosecuting" him. I am not a big fan of his author, Jose Pablo Feinmann (although he wrote a few masterpieces 35 years ago), but this novel is certainly worth reading.

More bragging: student evaluations

Yesterday, I finally got my student evaluations from the Spring Semester. I taught 2 Introductory language courses, and my most-beloved creature: Contemporary Latin American Civilization (actually, from the Independence towards today), with my own specially crafted syllabus. I wasn't sure what to expect in any of the courses. I knew the student evaluations were not going to be abysmal, but I did not know whether students were excited or not. I cared particularly about the Civilization class, since I spend a lot of time doing the syllabus. Well, success!!! In all three classes. But the one with the best evaluations was the Civilization class!! Yeahhh!. Here is an example of the comments I received:

"The variety of readings and topics discussed were real and not stereotypical Latin American topics"

"The course challenged me to think critically and use evidence to support my opinions. Spanish Prof never told us what to think"

"Spanish Prof makes her classes challenging without being unreasonable ... One of the best teachers at [my institution]"

"The medium she used (academic articles, short stories, clips, movies) were varied, yet the class was really cohesive"

And my favorite one?

"Spanish Prof knows her shit!" (I swear, it's true).

Mission accomplished! I'm a happy prof!

Kids, don't do it!

Invigorated by the thought that my colleagues were going back to the classroom and I had a sabbatical dedicated to my research, I spent the past three days fully immersed in it. As in saying no to my daily night walk with my husband, and reading, researching and writing for 12 hours in a row every day. I know, I know, bad idea. Now I have a small brain-cell meltdown. It will take me a few day to recover. I learned my lesson, I'll be more balanced in the future. But what can I say? It was exciting. It still is, obviously, but everything works better in moderation. Right?

The joy of teaching

The semester hasn't even started, and I have already received two emails from former students that graduated last June, saying how weird they feel because it's August and they will not be in one of my classes for the first time in two years. During the summer, I also got a postcard from a current major in our department, from Belize. On the "you were a great student but does it have to be this semester" side, a former student sent me a 20 pages long essay, asking for feedback. It's the essay she plans to use on her applications to grad schools for a PhD in Spanish. And yes, I will read it and comment on it, even if I am on sabbatical. I just like my students, and apparently it is mutual.

The mystery of the disappearing book

Yesterday, I spent the whole afternoon that apparently only exists in my imagination. It was a short monograph critical study on the Argentinean movie Pizza, birra, faso. It is part of a series called "Coleccion Nuevo Cine Argentino", published by Editorial Picnic. All short monographs are titled "Estudio crítico sobre [insert name of the movie]". Here are a few examples of those. What I would be looking for is "Estudio critico sobre Pizza, Birra, Faso".

I am almost possible I saw it at a bookstore in Buenos Aires. Here is the link from the publishing house to all the titles in the collection. If you take a look at number 8, there is the book I am looking for. However, it doesn't list the author (the name in parentheses are the directors of the movie). I couldn't find a single reference online to the book. Not in a library, not in an online store, not as a citation. Niet, nothing. I can't even find who wrote it. It was as if the book hadn't been published. And yet, I am sure I saw it a year ago in a Buenos Aires bookstore. Of course, my obsessive gene kicked in, and I am wasting my time looking for it. Am I going crazy? How can it be so hard to find a book (at least a mention to it)?

I'm a Russian from Rio

Last Saturday, my husband and I went out to a bar/tavern we go pretty often. It's in the "hipster" neighborhood of town. Although it is not a gay bar per se, that night there was a drag queen show. I run into my hair-dresser, somebody I've gone to for the past 3 years. I probably go 4 times a year. As a good businessman, he remembers his clients, although as it became obvious quickly, not the details.

We start making small talk, he introduces me to his boyfriend, asks me when will he see me again, etc. The drag queen show starts, and he asks me: "So, are there many drag queens in Russia?" "How would I know?" I replied. "I'm from Argentina." "Oh, right," he apologizes, "you are from Rio de Janeiro." "No, I'm from Buenos Aires." So he apologizes: "I'm sorry, my geography is not very good today. But Rio de Janeiro is right near Buenos Aires, right?". Ehhhh...."Close enough, but in another country."

Later, I laughed remembering the conversation. He had made every stereotypical mistake possible. I have many of those. My favorite was the day somebody at the Miami International Airport, after I told the person I was flying to Buenos Aires, asked me: "So how long does it take to fly to Africa from Miami?". I never take those remarks personally, because geography is not my strongest subject either.

Argentina's presidential election

I've written before about Argentina's bizarre election system. By law, all political parties have to have open primaries the same day, EVEN IF ONLY ONE CANDIDATE FROM THAT PARTY IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. That law was passed on 2009, so this is the first year that it goes into effect. And this year, every political party had only one internal candidate. So the open primaries are like the biggest poll in the world, since the candidates will be the same for the election (although nothing bans a candidate from quitting between the open primaries and the elections in October. Today were the open primaries. The results couldn't be more clear: Cristina Kirchner, the current president running for re-election, got more than 49% of the votes, while two other candidates got around 12% each.

Nobody doubted she would come first. But if she had gotten around 40% of the vote, an interesting political dynamic could have developed (alliances in the opposition parties, etc). With almost 50% of the vote, it looks like Cristina Kirchner will be easily re-elected in the presidential elections of October, 2011. I would say *sigh*, but neither Ricardo Alfonsin nor Eduardo Duhalde (who placed 2nd and 3rd) are more appealing to me. I would vote for Hermes Binner, but he still doesn't have a chance. So Kirchner for 4 more years it will be.

Using films in the language classroom

Shedding Khawatir has asked me to write a post on the topic of using films in the language classroom for an intermediate/advanced course. These are some of her questions/concerns:

I don't want to spend class time watching the film, but I can't assign them the whole film at once at home as there is other homework, so I was thinking of breaking it into parts. I also can't spend all class talking about a film as there are other activities. So I was thinking of breaking it into 10 minute segments for them to watch at home with some guidance and go over in class watching the relevant minutes only. But then I thought it would be really annoying to watch a film in ten minute segments. So, ideas?

The first thing I need to say is that, above all, I'm a film fanatic, so the idea of watching a film in ten minutes segments would drive me nuts. That being said, here are a few ideas.

- I will be writing this post with a language course (as opposed to a culture/civilization course) in mind. I don't get to choose what textbook I use, but I can supplement the textbook with whatever additional materials I want. And I do it pretty often. It can get tricky to show just clips of a movie if they don't have the context, but nobody has enough time to show the whole movie in the classroom. Usually, in a language class, I use films to illustrate a cultural aspect that appears as a lesson in the textbook (I've never used it for linguistic reasons). So the goal is not the film in itself (as an art form, as a cultural production), but an aid to an explanation of a particular issue. In my Spanish courses, I've used films in relation to topics such as tango, globalization, immigration, NAFTA (or any free-trade agreement) and/or social classes. So how do I do it?

- In my advance level class, one of the assignments is that throughout the semester they have to watch a movie that corresponds to a particular topic viewed in class, and then they have to write 2 pages explaining the movie and the connection with the topic. I give them a list of possible movies for each topic, and then students have to turn in the paper within two weeks of the topic being discussed in class. Of course, I give them guidelines as to what do I expect from the paper, as well as how it is graded.

- For the intermediate/advance level classroom, I show film clips. Sometimes, to add to the material that appears in the textbook, sometimes to contradict it. I always show them in the classroom because the resources my institution has are really poor, so I have to bring my own copy. I do spend the entire class on the clip, doing different activities with it.

- As an example. Let's say that in the textbook, there is a short text about immigration. 99% of the time, it will be about immigration of Latin Americans to the United States. I like to show my students another phenomenon: immigration within Latin American countries, and the problems, obstacles and issues that immigrants go through. Why do I do it?

a) Because it goes against the student stereotype of a monolithic Latin America.

b) When showing them problems of racism and discrimination that occur in other countries, it's easier for them to empathize, that the do not feel it's an attack from the professor on the United States. And then we can have a class discussion about similarities and differences between what they have seen in the clip and what they know about what is happening in the United States.

So how do I do it?

a) I assign the reading that appears in the textbook for the following class, and the comprehension questions that come with it. The following class, we briefly discuss the text and the comprehension questions (5 - 10 minutes). I also bring to class a brief set of comprehension questions about the clip they are about to watch. I distribute the comprehension questions, I give them a summary of the movie they are about to watch a clip, and then I show 2 clips of the Argentine movie Bolivia. As the summary from the website IMDB describes it, the movie is about

A Bolivian immigrant working illegally as a cook in a small restaurant in Buenos Aires suffers abuse and discrimination from its customers.

There are a lot of clips in the movie that illustrates this perfectly. I use two clips.

b)The first one is a scene of the movie in particular where the patrons of the restaurant and the owner of the restaurant constantly confuse the nationality of Freddy, the cook. They say he is from Peru and from Paraguay (other countries from where there is immigration to Argentina). Although the customers are not openly hostile, their attitude of superiority is very obvious.

c) The second clip is a conversation between Freddy and Rosa, a waitress at the bar who is originally from Paraguay. Rosa asks Freddy why did he emigrate to Argentina, and Freddy explains how he used to work in the coca fields in Bolivia, but after the Americans raided and destroyed those fields, he was unable to support his family any more. Rosa, on the other side, explains how one of her parents is from Paraguay, the other is from Argentina. She was born in Paraguay, came to Argentina 4 years ago, and can't wait to leave.

d) Explaining the film and watching the clips takes about 10 minutes. Then, we discuss for 5 minutes the comprehension questions, and I explain them any doubts they may have. So far, we have used 25 minutes (out of a 50 minutes class). Then, I put up a power point with questions (in Spanish, of course) such as:

- Did you know that there was immigration within Latin America and not just to the United States?

- Why does Freddy say that he emigrated to Argentina after the US destroyed the coca fields in his native country? Do yo know what he is talking about?

- How can you compare Freddy's situation to that of an illegal immigrant in the United States? What kind of attitude towards Freddy can you observe in the movie clip? Do you think they go through similar experiences?

I then split them in groups and have them discuss the questions for 10 minutes. I walk around, just to make sure they are talking in Spanish and to help them with whatever they need. Then, the last 15 minutes of the class, is an open class discussion regarding immigration, and all the complexities of the topic. Of course, there are a lot of different positions within the students, and I make sure that everybody talks and gives his/her opinion, regardless of what s/he believes. As a follow up, I ask them a two paragraph reflection on the topic for the following class.

This is just one example of how I use films within a language class. To go back to Shedding Khawatir concerns, I would say that a) try to use clips more than entire films; b) Using the entire classroom time is more productive than cutting the discussion short. Of course, it means sacrificing something else. As an instructor, you will know what is essential and what you can sacrifice. An additional benefit of using the whole class time and this format is that it prepares them for more complex discussions they will encounter in upper level classes.

Of course, I have many other examples. Some do not take up all the class time (tango, for example). Any questions, additional issues you'd like me to expand on? I'll be glad to answer.

Movie recommendations for a student

Last semester, I had an excellent student in my Spanish 101 class. S/he also loved movies, so at the end of the semester s/he asked me to suggest a list of Spanish-speaking films to watch. I gave hir a long list. The other day, s/he wrote back telling me hir favorite ones, and the ones s/he didn't like much. So here are my movie recommendations, as tried on a 19 year old student (with excellent taste):

1 - Deep Crimson, by Arturo Ripstein. The closest thing to an heir to Bunuel, this is one of his best. Any movie he did in the 1990s is a masterpiece.

2-Crimen Ferpecto, by Alex de la Iglesia. Spanish dark comedy. I love Alex de la Iglesia, so in that vein, let me recommend two other movies by him: Dying of Laughterand El Dia De La Bestia , a black comedy about a priest trying to avoid the birth of the AntiChrist. The latter is one of the best and most political Spanish movies from the 1990s.

3-Burnt Money, based on Ricardo Piglia's book. The movie is OK, but the book is ten times better.

4- Cama Adentro, about the decadence of Argentine middle-class.

5- Solo Con Tu Pareja, a Mexican romantic comedy that is much better than it sounds.

I think all these movies are worth seeing, although I do not necessarily believe all of them are great. But it's a good sample of what a young American (with interest in foreign cultures) can like.

Textbooks for classes

It's that time of the year again where, if you haven't worked on it before or if you have decided to change the syllabus, you may have to pick a textbook for the classes you are teaching. Every discipline, as well as the class level, is different, of course. In my situation, I do not get to choose the textbook for the language courses. I've complained about Introductory Spanish textbooks before. But I do not get to choose them. Many people in my field use textbooks for Introductory Literature Surveys. There are a few decent textbooks around, but I've always assigned novels and articles. What I have always found abysmal are the textbooks for Latin American civilization classes. Therefore, I spend a lot of time constructing a syllabus that satisfies me each semester I'm teaching one of those courses. And I refuse to use textbooks.

What about you? Are there any canonical textbook that you always use for a certain course? Are you forced to use a textbook that you hate for a class? Are there textbooks that you really like? Have you ever decided to skip a textbook, although 99% of your colleagues teaching that course uses one, and instead build your own syllabus?

Technology and the Research Process

I just wanted to alert all my readers that blogger Shedding Khawatir has been publishing a series of posts on how to integrate technology and software programs into your research process. The posts are wonderful and highly informative. They help me a lot, so I am sure everybody can benefit from them. The posts about technology and the research process (4 so far) are here, here, here and here. Take a look at them.

Tea Party in Space

Thanks to Talking Points Memo, I came across this gem: an offshoot of the South Florida Tea Party has formed a group called "Tea Party in Space". What are the goals of the Tea Party in Space? To break apart the government socialist control of the space program, bring fiscal responsibility into it, and introduce free-market forces into the space program. Currently, since the government controls the space program, it is clearly a socialist program. The Tea Party in Space is trying to put an end to such aberration. I followed the link, read the material, and couldn't find a hint that it was a joke. Jon Stewart must be furious that he didn't come up with the idea himself. Oh vey!

Bananas

Yesterday, I woke up feeling nauseated. My husband said: "Well, why don't you eat a banana. I've heard they are good for nausea." I replied: "I ate three bananas yesterday, and was actually attributing my nausea to it." The day degenerated pretty quickly, I felt worse, I vomit, etc. Today I feel better. I don't know if it were the bananas or something else I ate, but just as a cautionary tale: don't eat too many bananas!!!

The only good thing about the disastrous neoliberal decade in Argentina...

From a pure selfish perspective, the only silver lining to the disastrous neoliberal decade (the 1990s) in Argentina was that, because how overvalued the currency was, I was able to see live almost any music band or singer I liked (the only ones I didn't have the chance were The Cure and REM).

I saw David Bowie, Guns n' Roses (yeah, they were good in the early 90s), Faith no More, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pantera, Nick Cave, and many others (as well as many great Argentinean bands, of course). I could have seen, but wasn't interested, U2, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and Madonna. I even saw the Sex Pistols in their 1997 reunion tour. As Johnny Rotten said very clearly, it was all for the money. And it showed. It was boring and disappointing, but hey, I have bragging rights. On a similar note, I also saw Nirvana. It was awful. Kurt Cobain was so high on heroine that he couldn't remember the lyrics. But again, I have bragging rights. The funniest anecdote was seeing Marilyn Manson at a music festival with several bands. The organizer wasn't the smartest person, so he programmed Marilyn Manson at an open venue, during daylight! He wasn't very happy about it.

I saw The Ramones 7 times!!! Yes, they were huge in Argentina. In the wonderful documentary End of the Century - The Story of the Ramones, there is a part when one of them is bitterly complaining that they never achieved in the United State the recognition they had in other countries. It cuts to footage of them being interviewed in an Argentine TV show, and then it goes to a scene straight out from The Beatles craziness. The Ramones are leaving their hotel in a van, an a multitude waiting outside goes crazy and starts jumping on the van and pounding on it. And it happened in Argentina!!! I saw them in venues for 1000 people, and as the main act in a stadium for 60,000. And it was sold out.

My favorite shows were not necessarily those of my favorite bands. The best ones I attended were: The Beastie Boys (two hours of continuous energy, jumping without stopping), Living Colors (I left the first concert and right away bought a ticket for another show the following day), Iggy Pop and the German punk band Die Toten Hosen.

What about you? What bands have you seen live? Which ones would you have liked to see, but didn't get the chance? What was the best concert you ever attended?

Feminism in Latin America

Thanks to Feministe, I found an article lamenting the fact that women politician in Latin America don't identify themselves as feminists, and an excellent reply to that article. Contrasting both articles allows a good insight into the question of gender issues in Latin America, and how problematic it can be to apply theoretical frameworks that come from US academia to a completely different cultural context, without questioning them first.

In the first article, Manuela Picq explains how, despite the raising number of female presidents in Latin America in the last decade,

female candidates have so far refrained from invoking women's rights to win elections.

Picq adds that, in fact,

it was a man who first used a feminist argument against his female opponent. Peruvian president Ollanta Humala won a tight runoff race [in 2011] against Keiko Fujimori by focusing his campaign on women's right to decide over their bodies.

Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, who was president of Peru in the 1990s and is now in prison convicted of corruption and human rights violations. Picq explains how did Humala use feminist arguments against Keiko Fujimori:

Between 1996 and 2000, the Fujimori regime executed an aggressive sterilisation programme, imposing quotas on medical institutions and staff. The result was the forced sterilisation of an estimated 300,000 mostly poor women living in rural, indigenous areas...The Fujimori government's responsibility for the programme of sterilisation was officially recognised in 2003... Despite an official investigation, there have been few sanctions...during a presidential debate on May 29 ... Humala brought up Alberto Fujimori's record of forced sterilisations in the 1990s. Forcing Keiko to take a stand on her father's policies that violated women's bodies, Humala catapulted gender issues to the forefront of the presidential race.

Picq acknowledges that

The presence of women in positions of power goes hand-in-hand with policy changes promoting gender equity. Under Bachelet, Chile was the country to report the most progress to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Since then, other female presidents have expanded women's economic and political participation through policies such as laws aimed at reducing the gender wage gap, cash transfer programmes that improve women's economic well-being and citizenship, and parity in national cabinets by naming equal numbers of female and male ministers.

However, the author complains that

none of the women presidents was elected on a feminist platform

Picq concludes that

As encouraging as it may be to see women's rights rise to the forefront of electoral campaigns, a closer look reveals there is less to celebrate than appears at first sight. The inclusion of women in politics has not yet led to an explicit feminisation of policy proposals in electoral campaigns. Paradoxically, it is easier for a male candidate to embrace feminist discourse because he is less easily defined as a feminist extremist

I find this article very problematic. It focuses more on rhetoric than on effective changes. Although the author recognizes the progress in gender equality due to women as presidents, she ends her article as follows:

At the end of the day, feminist ideas are still perceived to be too radical, and women candidates keep women's rights under wraps when running for office. When we recognise that gender equity is key to achieving social justice, perhaps feminism will cease to be stigmatised, and will become winning politics.

Of course, I don't assume that this article represents the only possible articulation of the meaning of "feminism" (in the United States or elsewhere). This way of conceiving "feminism" reveals a logic where feminism can have only one meaning, and assumes that there is only one way to achieving gender equality. It is profoundly ethnocentric. It doesn't take into account that there can be different political strategies to achieve a certain result.

Flavia Dzodan responds to this article along these lines. She explains:

In Latin America, or at least in many parts of Latin America, feminism is a very disliked topic and, not for the reasons people might believe. It is not frowned upon because of machismo (ah yes, a word so many love to throw around uncritically when referring to Latin America) or because “Latinas are tools of the patriarchy“, but because feminism, at least the Western conception of feminism, is perceived by many, as inherently oppressive of minorities. Many Western feminists have gone to Latin America and have attempted to narrate Latin America’s history and realities with a lens that didn’t take into account the many vectors of violence affecting local women. Indigenous women, mestizas, women from rural areas, migrant women, etc, etc, all have been subject to gender violence that is pretty unique to our continent and when reading this violence, the Western feminist paradigm of non intersectional gender oppression does not necessarily apply.

Dzodan also points out how, in indigenous communities where women were subject to forced sterilization (and the Peruvian example is certainly not the only one),

when feminists come with proposals or programs to push for abortion rights above any other gender matter, they alienate these women for whom the idea of reproductive justice is not just on a different page, but it entails a whole different kind of justice and reparations.

Furthermore,

in Latin America, feminism is considered by many politically involved and conscious activists to be fundamentally ethnocentric. One of the reasons for this is due to the fact that many indigenous and mestiza women who had to leave their rural communities behind to migrate to cities see the practice of feminism as specifically oppressive towards them, something that middle class women (who often employ them as maids or for service related labor) indulge in, but never contemplates their inclusion or their rights as working class rural women whose struggles for land and property are almost always overlooked.

I really don't understand how "there is less to celebrate than appears at first sight," only because women candidates do not run with openly feminist proposals. The author recognizes that once in power, there tends to be be policy changes promoting gender equality. Certainly, a woman running on an explicit feminist platform would be less likely to succeed. First of all, because in most Latin American countries, what is important are still the economic proposals. Second, because "feminism", as it is understood in the First World, not always translates very well into Latin American countries. Yes, "feminism" is still a taboo word in many Latin American countries. In part, it's due to machismo. But many people (women included) see it as cultural imperialism, the imposition of a model of society from the First World into the periphery. Given the colonial past of Latin America, this is certain very relevant. The first article is an example of the type of analysis that makes me cringe. It completely ignores class and racial issues. It simplifies a complex political reality, and leads to the type of generalizations that are useless at best and damaging at worst ("Latin American countries are all machistas"). It points out to intellectuals for whom abstract discourse is more important than political praxis. It is not surprising that when First World NGOs go to Latin America, many of these organizations encounter a strong resistance to their proposals. But maybe, it is not for the reason they imagine. Not many of them will engage in self-reflection and question their practices, though.

What do you read for pleasure?

During the year, I'm usually too busy to pick up books not related to my research. If I have some free time, I tend to pick up a magazine (anything from Lucky Magazine to The New Yorker). There is, however, certain kind of books that I pick up to read for pleasure, to relax.

Part of my research is about crime fiction, so it is very difficult to me to read a crime novel as leisure. This summer, however, I read Manuel Vazquez Montalban's Galindez, probably his best book. It is a great novel, but I did have a hard time stopping myself from mentally analyzing it.

Another genre I like is historical popular fiction. For example, I understand Bardiac's latest post from England thanks to Antonia Fraser's books. The Wives of Henry VIII is my favorite related to that time period. I also really enjoyed Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette, the French queen that died under the guillotine during the French Revolution. I am not as charmed by Philippa Gregory, but I know professional historians who like reading her.

Another genre I like reading is True Crime. Therefore, the series The Best American Crime Reporting... that comes up every year is mandatory, for me. I also have a subscription for Vanity Fair, I love their long articles (they come to life in a way that The New Yorker long articles don't).

What about you? What do you read for leisure, to relax? Does your profession affect your choices?

Carlos, by Olivier Assayas

Last Saturday, I watched the movie Carlos, by Olivier Assayas. Originally made for French TV, it runs almost five and a half hours long (there is a shorter version of around 3 1/2 hours). It tells the story of notorious terrorist Carlos, the Jackal, who rose to fame in the 1970s for his participation in guerrilla activities in defense of the Palestinian cause. Part social documentary of an epoch, part spy-thriller, the movie is worth every second of its 5 and a half hour duration (but I strongly recommend not watching it at once, but half one day and half the following day).

As a fiction movie, the pulse of the narrative is perfect. The whole sequence (probably 45 minutes long) of the 1975 attack to the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, and its aftermath, could be used in a film production class as an example of how to narrate an action film.

As a reflection of a time period, it's even more impressive. The movie shows the transformation of idealism into fanaticism (or those who refused to enter that logic and had to live in hiding for many years as a consequence), how guerilla movements became dominated by the logic of war and developed a structure that mimic that of an Army, and the consequences that world-events had on their deeply held ideological beliefs. Carlos starts as a young idealist, soon becomes a fanatic obsessed with organizing his own clandestine Army, and ends as a tool, a mercenary of different Middle-East governments in their power games. Parallel to this is Carlos personal transformation: at the beginning, he is a charming womanizer. At the end, he is a pathetic, vain, bluff.

The movie Carlos also resonated with me because it complements very well with a period of Argentine history I've been reading a lot about lately: the 1970's guerrilla organization Montoneros, who underwent a similar transformation. I will write more about the topic soon, but in the meantime, here is the official trailer of the movie:

Computer software to help with the research and writing process...UPDATE

As you probably know, I have a sabbatical this semester (Yeah....). Today is the first day since I came back from Buenos Aires where I officially consider myself back to work, so no more interruptions (yeah, right...), the process starts. I have my books, my notes, etc. Of course, there is a lot more that I need to do. I wanted to ask my readers if there is any computer software programs that you recommend that can help me with the research and the writing process (to organize, to speed things up, etc). I've been using Microsoft OneNote so far (it's installed in the computer my university provides me), but I am sure I am missing many cool computer software programs that could make my life easier. Any suggestions? By the way, I use a PC.

UPDATE: Shedding Khawatir has written a wonderful post that not only deals with this topic, but also with how she integrates the technology into her research process. It's a must read.

My Netflix queue

My household has an uneven relationship with Netflix. We subscribe and use the service for a certain period of time, and then life get busy and we realize we've had a movie from Netflix, unwatched, for a month. So we unsubscribe. Then a few months later, we realize that we have more time, we start talking about movies we would like to see, so we subscribe to Netflix again. That's exactly what I did today. I subscribed to Netflix for the nth time. Here are the first three movies on my Netflix queue.

1- Two In The Wave, a documentary about the friendship and falling out of Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard, the two most famous directors that came out of the French New Wave in the 1960s. They were best friends, and then they fought and barely spoke to each other again due to political reasons. The French New Wave in itself is one of the most important periods in film history, so I've been eager to see the documentary since I first heard of it.

2-Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho. I've seen this movie more than 5 times, and I consider it among the best movies of the 1990s. Now, I want my husband to see it. Also, I want to prove him that Keanu Reeves can be in a movie and not ruin it.

3- Carancho, by Argentinean director Pablo Trapero. Pablo Trapero has made two of the most important Argentine movies from the past 15 years: Mundo Grua (Crane World), and El bonaerense. His later movies, though, don't live up to the expectations. I've heard that Carancho, his latest opus, is a return to form. Let's hope it's true.

Argentina's bizarre presidential election.

Argentina has a multi-party system. It is also mandatory to vote (although this is not enforced too often, usually 75% of the population cast a vote). There will be a national presidential election on October 23, 2011. There is a round-off if no candidate obtains either 45% of the votes or 40% of the votes and a 10% difference with the candidate that comes in second. So far, nothing that differentiates Argentina's electoral system from other countries. However, there is one element that has turn campaigns into bizarro world.

In 2009, a bill was passed by the Congress that required that every political party that was competing for the presidential elections hold open primaries among the different candidates in each party, the same day for everybody. Voting is mandatory. So if you are an Argentinean citizen, that day (in this case a month and a half before the elections) you go to vote, and get to choose for one candidate (total, you can't vote for a candidate of each party). Now, this is where things take a turn into the weird. The open primaries are mandatory, and all political parties have to participate, even if they have only one internal candidate. This year, Argentina's open primaries voting day is August 14, 2011. Now here is the catch: each political party has only one internal candidate. The result is that you will have a voting day that mimics the general elections. Same candidates, same mandatory voting, and people get to choose one of them. As somebody has called it, in 2011, Argentina will have "the biggest poll" ever imagined before a national election. So far, the candidates are campaigning as if it were a national election. Some political analysts wonder if the results of the open primaries election will change the political landscape (Cristina Kirchner, the current president, is polling first, but there is great mystery as to what's the percentage she will get and how much can the opposition get), or if Argentina's open primaries are just another element of an often bizarre and unpredictable political dynamic. Regardless, what country can say that they get to have to elections instead of one?

How to answer an e-mail from a Tea Partier...UPDATE

Well, finally my husband received a reply from the response he sent to the group e-mail from the Tea Partiers. The response came from somebody he doesn't know, and just said: "You are wrong. That's completely different. Farmers are hardworking Americans, they do not receive welfare". It was predictable to the last period. But hey, he provoked somebody...

Buying summer sandals...an update

Dear readers, I haven't forgotten my post about buying summer sandals, and all your wonderful suggestions. I was busy with multiple things when I returned from Argentina, but I finally got the chance to sit down, do my research, and order sandals!!!! Since I received an unexpected monetary gift from my parents, I was able to splurge a little more. Here are the sandals I bought.

Dr. Scholl's Dark Red Women's Sanata.

Brigitte Bailey Rinnie in Bronze.... Thanks, Clarisa!!!

Naturalizer Women's Merry

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions. I'll let you know how they fit when they arrive...

Why I did not like the Argentine movie "El secreto de sus ojos" - SPOILER ALERT

Two days ago, Jonathan published on his blog a brief review of the Argentine film El secreto de sus ojos. The movie was very popular, and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Movie in 2010. I posted in the comments that although it was impeccable in its technical aspects, as an Argentinean, I found El secreto de sus ojos disgusting from a moral and political point of view. A conversation developed in Jonathan's post, and another reader said that he would like to know my reasons for it. Since explaining it entails revealing the ending, I repeat: SPOILER ALERT. This movie is a thriller, and the twists at the end are essential to the whole movie. At this point, I assume you've seen the movie. If you have not, but you are still curious about this post, here is additional information about the film.

First, a little historical context for those who are not familiar with Argentine history. Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina suffered a brutal dictatorship. The government put in place an genocidal strategy where any person merely suspected of being critical of the government was usually arrested, held in concentration camps, tortured, and then killed. This was done in a clandestine way, so the bodies of many of those killed by State-sponsored death squads never appeared. State-sponsored death squads did not start in Argentina in 1976 but some years before, during the last Peronist government. When democracy came back, Argentina prosecuted and put in jailed those responsible for the concentration camps, from the high-rank leaders to anybody who had been involved in the operation. Because of pressure from the Army, the lower-rank officials were freed some years later, and finally an "Indulto" (basically a pardon of the crimes) for everybody was signed by democratic president Carlos Menem in the early 1990s. However, different human-rights organizations never ceased their fight for justice, and in the yearly 2000s, the Supreme Court declared that the Indulto was unconstitutional because the high-rank officers had committed crimes against humanity. Many of them are now back in jail. In that sense, Argentina is different from other countries that suffered brutal dictatorship, because it actually prosecuted and put in jail those responsible. What happened in countries like Chile, Uruguay and Brazil vary, but there was either an Amnesty Law, some sort of Reconciliation Commission, but in the end, nobody responsible for this State-sponsored terrorism was prosecuted and put in jail.

Now back to the movie. El secreto de sus ojos goes back and forth between the present and the past. In the past a crime took place: a man raped and murdered a woman. The crime is investigated by Esposito, a legal aid to a Irene, a jugde (in Argentina, how crimes are investigated is different than in the US). Esposito finds the rapist, but he doesn't spend much time in jail. He becomes a member of government death-squads and is thus freed. Esposito is also in love with his boss. Nothing comes out of it, though. Forward to the present (it actually takes place in 1999). 25 years later, Esposito comes back to Buenos Aires and starts writing a novel about the case and thus reopening the past. He gets in contact with Irene again. This is the basic plot of the movie. Why did I find it morally and politically disgusting?

In the end, Esposito discovers that Ricardo, the husband of the woman who was raped and murdered, had kidnapped the rapists and kept him as a prisoner in a small room in his house in the countryside. This had been going on for 25 years. When discovered, Ricardo says that he only wanted justice. Then, Esposito turns around and leaves Ricardo's house in the countryside. We don't know what he did about it. If that had been the end, one could argue that it is ambiguous, since one doesn't know what Esposito is going to do next. However, there is one additional final scene, played with the conventions of a romantic comedy. Esposito goes to Irene's workplace and finally declares his love for her. She smiles, kisses him, and that's the end.

I found the contraposition between these last two scenes disgusting. One thing that was amazing in Argentina was that what was sought for the criminals of the dictatorship was justice, never revenge. Ricardo just took justice in his own hands, and became a vigilante. The movie, with its ending in a romantic tone, seems to embrace this idea. There is nothing ambiguous about the ending. The way I see it, Esposito gave Ricardo a pass and just went to look for Irene. The movie has constructed Ricardo as a sympathetic though slightly pathetic character, and the criminal as a monster. For me, however, vigilantism is always a fascist solution, no matter who executes it and who becomes its victim. Furthermore, it goes against everything human rights organizations fought for in Argentina. These are the reasons why I did not like the movie El secreto de sus ojos.