Congratulations to the Undergraduate Departmental Award Winners
June 11, 2019
Humberto E. Robles Prize for the Best Honors Thesis
WINNER - Marisa Samani
La lucha artística y militante por el cuerpo femenino. Tres etapas de representación del cuerpo en el arte hecho por mujeres en las últimas tres décadasdel siglo XX
The thesis provides a selection and interpretation of Latin American female artist's production strongly influenced by what is now called the second wave feminism, which critically engaged with the normative figuration of female bodies. Marisa closely follows the argument and definition of feminism and feminist art articulated by the Chilean critic, Nelly Richard. The argument focuses on a specific historical moment in late 20th century when women artists take on the public sphere and the artistic institutions in order to criticize the historical construction of the canon, the narrow conception of female body, and also the violence and marginalization their bodies are exposed to as female.
Best Essay for Spanish 200-level Literature and Culture Classes
WINNER - Grace Ramsay
La rebelión y la resistencia en “Grafitti”
The essay’s perceptive close reading of Julio Cortazar’s short story “Graffiti” (1980) focuses on the relationship between verbal and visual forms of resistance. The essay addresses key features of narrative technique and language to analyze successfully how the story represents the drawing of graffiti as small, individual acts of resistance against violence and censorship.
HONORABLE MENTION - Gabriela Czochara
Una mente sin muros
The essay offers a creative and well articulated analysis of La casa de Bernarda Alba in three different adaptations, that of modern dance, theater and on film. It cogently argues for the differences and continuities between these manifestations, and in so doing negotiates complex differences in media and performance.
Best Essay on the Literatures and Cultures of Latin America and/or Spain
WINNER - María Grenader
El lugar de la mujer en el indigenismo
The essay is nuanced and exceptionally clear in its analysis of the representation of women’s labor in the texts Aves sin nido and Tempestad in los Andes. In particular, its breakdown of that labor into the maternal, domestic, and agential types demonstrates the subtleties of the imaginary around indigenous women in Andean literary traditions.
HONORABLE MENTION - Meredith Falk
Alonso Ramírez: una explicación sobre el criollismo en una sociedad ardua
The essay provides an excellent analysis of the hybrid nature of Siguenza y Gongora’s Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. In particular, it carefully traces out the crónica, the biography, the novel of adventures, and other genre as all present and in interplay within the text.