Latin American Literature

Imagining India / Hinduism from Chile

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Felipe Luarte Correa
Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Chile. Email id: fluarte@uc.cl

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–7. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.18

First published: October 17, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Imagining India / Hinduism from Chile

Abstract

Indian culture expresses itself in Chile’s daily life that, until recently, would have been unthinkable both for its real and mental remoteness. Undoubtedly, this is a consequence of globalization and the rapid flow of ideas and practices of the last decades, but it is also due to the sustained increase in the presence of the Indian community in Chile from the mid-’80s onwards, with the economic opening during that time creating favorable conditions for the increased number of Indian immigration in Chilean society. India’s cultural identity is marked by its religious way of life and in general, Hindu immigrants – as a result of the characteristics of Hinduism – have tended to reproduce their culture and religion while having to adjust to local circumstances. Consequently, both are renegotiated. This process implies an enormous effort of adaptability, which is necessary to be able to develop themselves in the new country without having to abandon the cultural baggage they bring with them, creating new strategies of action that at the same time imply and generate new ways of relating and redefining their identity referents.

Keywords: Chile, identity, Immigrant, India, Partial Scope Agreement

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The Symbol of the Sea in Rabindranath Tagore and Juan Ramón Jiménez

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Carlos Varona Narvión
Director, Spanish Embassy, Instituto Cervantes Marrakech, Marrakech, Morocco. Email: dirmar@cervantes.es

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–21. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.16

First published: October 15, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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The Symbol of the Sea in Rabindranath Tagore and Juan Ramón Jiménez

Those of us who were born inland, deep inside the continent, have a fixed memory of the first time we saw the sea, the hugeness that goes beyond anything a child can ever imagine, the roaring that seems to want to share a secret which we shall never learn. One of the constants running through the oeuvre of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is an allusion to the beaches of the Ganges, where the poet meditated and on which, as the laureate himself told the world in his speech of acceptance of the Swedish prize, he heard the “muse” that prompted him to compose his verses1. On the other hand, we also know, from his numerous trips to Europe and the United States, that he was acquainted with several oceans, in addition to the Indian one, owing to the many times he sailed their waves on his journeys. Over this course, he started to make out that other boundless, shoreless ocean of which he speaks to us. He does this, for instance, in his Gitanjali (Song Offerings), one of his key works, of which André Gide would say that Tagore was seeking God in a “coloured reflection” 2, thus pointing to the keen and vibrant spirituality of this extremely famous collection of poems, published in the bard’s own translation into English a year before he received the Nobel Prize. Here, he tells us in the poem ‘Ocean of Forms’ (G 101)…Full-Text PDF

Inundating Cultural Diversity: A Critical Study of Oral Narratives of Kurichyas and Guarani in the Structuralist Perspective

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Haseena Naji

Research Scholar, Department of English Studies, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu, India. Email: haseenanaji@gmail.com

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–21. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.13

First published: October 8, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Inundating Cultural Diversity: A Critical Study of Oral Narratives of Kurichyas and Guarani in the Structuralist Perspective

Abstract

The paper seeks to explore the practicability of using Vladimir Propp’s framework to study the oral narratives of the Kurichyan tribe of Wayanad, Kerala, India and of the Guarani tribe of Paraguay, South America. For this purpose, Narippaattu (Wolf Song) of Kurichyar and The Beginning Life of the Hummingbird of Guarani are chosen. Out of the 27 functional events identified in the former, six of them do not fit into the Proppian framework and of the 13 identified in the latter, three of them do not conform to the Proppian structure. The events which are matched with Proppian events are tediously paralleled and do not correspond to each other entirely in the Proppian sense. None of the events identified in both tales show any linear or causal progression. Through this, I argue that an attempt to study narratives that originate from communities with multiple subtle diversities in terms of a universal structure will be problematic and mostly futile. We will lose the culturally distinct, subtle manifestations in the narratives in the endeavour to make them fit into any universal framework.

Keywords: structural analysis, Kurichya, Guarani, Propp, narrative analysis, poststructuralism

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Subverting Narratives of Nationalism: A Cross-National Study of Borges and Muktibodh

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Akansha Singh

Assistant Professor, NALSAR University of Law. Email: akansha.s@outlook.com

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–15. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.11

First published: October 8, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Subverting Narratives of Nationalism: A Cross-National Study of Borges and Muktibodh

Abstract

The mid-twentieth century Argentina and India witnessed a discursive construction and circulation of national identity closely entwined with literary production. This caused a surge in nationalistic sentiments, often culminating in socially discriminatory consequences. This paper shall analyse the role Jorge Luis Borges and Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh played in subverting nationalism, as members on the ideological margins of their respective countries. The study involves two interconnected inquiries in the authors’ works. First, a study of reasons behind their rejection of nationalistic writing— their personal lives as affected by it, their discontent with literary movements they were part of, literary censorships, and loss of jobs on account of their ideological differences. Second, a study of the alternatives the two writers offered against nationalism— literary forms, styles, and techniques. Placing the two inquiries together, the paper will study their works as writings of resistance that surface through a fusion of political opinion and social critique. It will further argue how resistance through writing conditions guides their existence.

Keywords: Nationalism, Borges, Muktibodh, Modernism, Post- Colonial

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From the observatory in India: Julio Cortázar´s Kaleidoscopic Gaze

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Lucía Caminada Rossetti

Tenured Professor, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Argentina. Email: lucia.caminada@comunidad.unne.edu.ar

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–13. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.10

First published: October 8, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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From the observatory in India: Julio Cortázar´s Kaleidoscopic Gaze

Abstract

This article investigates two texts that the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar produced in relation to his experience and trips to India:  Prose of the observatory (1972) and the text Turismo aconsejable [Advisable tourism] included in Último round (1969). Both texts contain photographs, which generate a kaleidoscopic gaze characterized by cultural distance and closeness, as well as aesthetic experience. The hypothesis is that a kind of observatory is generated from which the writer observes, perceives and interprets the sensitivity of Latin American and Indian cultures in dialogue. The objective of this study is to identify the Cortazarian kaleidoscopic gaze that permanently generates both an approach and a distance, through the reading of these hybrid texts whose photographs and words produce a playful and experimental space.

Keywords: Julio Cortázar, Prose of the Observatory, India, kaleidoscopic gaze, photography

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Representation of India in Travel Writings by Latin American Women in the 20th Century

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Mala Shikha1 & Ranjeeva Ranjan2

1Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish Studies, School of Languages, Doon University. Email id: malashikha@doonuniversity.ac.in

2Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile. Email id: ranjan@ucm.cl

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–8. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.08

First published: October 7, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Representation of India in Travel Writings by Latin American Women in the 20th Century

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of India in the works of Latin American women writers in the 20th Century. With the advent of Modernism in Latin America in the late 19th Century as a turn-of-the-century movement, Latin American intellectuals started engaging with India such as Rubén Darío in Azul (1888). However, it was Gabriela Mistral, a Nobel laureate from Chile, who although never travelled to India, may be considered the first Latin American woman writer who engaged with India through the appreciation of Tagore in her literary repertoire. Furthermore, in the 20th Century Cecília Meireles, one of the most famous Modernist poets from Brazil visited India in 1953 upon being invited by Jawaharlal Nehru. She noted in her diary that as paradoxical as it sounds, it is much easier to understand India if one knows Brazil. She drew similarities between the fundamental issues of the two countries then. She wrote the anthology Poemas Escritos Na Índia (1961). Another important performance artist is Josefina Báez who would combine yoga and her lived experience in the three spaces of New York, La Romana in the Dominican Republic and India to produce zany dance dramas like Dominicanish (2001). She uses the classical dance form of Kuchipudi originating in the south of India to restructure her Dominican cultural identity in New York. Another contemporary Mexican writer, Margo Glantz, wrote her work Coronada de Moscas (2012), which is a travelogue based on her three sojourns in India accompanied with photographs by Alina López Cámara. The paper analyses the works by the above-mentioned Latin American intellectuals vis-à-vis representation of India in them and focuses on what it is to travel to India and write on it for Latin American women in the 20th Century. This has been done using the theoretical perspective of bell hooks (Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 1984) and Mary Louise Pratt (Imperial Eyes, 1992).

Keywords: India, travel writings, Latin America, women, 20th century

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The Idea of the Border in the Digital Age

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Debra A. Castillo1 & Parthasarathi Bhaumik2

1Professor, Cornell University. Email id: dac9@cornell.edu. 2Associate Professor, Jadavpur University, India. Email: parthasarathi.bhaumik@jadavpuruniversity.in

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–16. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.07

First published: September 29, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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The Idea of the Border in the Digital Age

Abstract

Our history of border wars and entrenched positions has given us officially drawn lines, that notwithstanding their obvious irrationality, are so deeply embedded in our psyches that we no longer even register them. At the same time, during the digital age, the rise of different ways of looking at the borders in Mexico and South Asia has explicit and implicit relations to these brutal histories, defining ways we continue to negotiate national and transnational identities and ideological projects.  This contribution looks at theoretical and artistic examples from both continents to ask about the effects of new media on our experiences of our bodies and our sense of human agency.

Keywords: Border, Digital Age, Mexico, South Asia

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India as a Reference in Octavio Paz

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Benjamín Valdivia

University of Guanajuato (Mexico). 

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–8. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.06

First published: September 29, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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India as a Reference in Octavio Paz

Abstract

The Mexican poet, Octavio Paz is a major figure in contemporary literature. An important stage of his writing deals with personal experiences or philosophical and religious traditions from India. In this paper, we focus on a set of principal points and figures in which these influences appear inside his work. The Indian presence is visible not only in his poems of East Slope [Ladera este] but in other works he wrote specifically to clarify his points of view, knowledge, and feelings about this country. Other works in which India is a principal topic are In Light of India [Vislumbres de la India], and The Grammatical Monkey [El mono gramático]. The Double Flame [La llama doble] and some translations also connect with India. Octavio Paz had a particular interest in ancient Mexican culture, searching there for the deepest signification of being a Mexican, as he was. But, on the other side, Paz identifies himself as a citizen of the world, focused on languages, history, myths and arts from several countries or, at least, groups of countries. Ancestral manifestations from various places were particularly meaningful to him because of the links he found between them. In this way, a great amount of his work is based on comparisons and analogies.

Keywords: Octavio Paz, India-Mexico, cosmopolitanism, ancient culture

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Pablo Neruda and Juan Marín’s Diplomatic Trip: Some Prose Works on India

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Lorena P. López Torres1 & Marina Fierro Concha2

1Director, Department of Spanish Language and Literature, Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile.

2Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish Language and Literature, Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.05

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Pablo Neruda and Juan Marín’s Diplomatic Trip: Some Prose Works on India

Abstract

This paper analyses the representations of Indian culture in Pablo Neruda’s Confieso que he vivido (1974), and Juan Marín’s La India eterna (1956), both based on the Chilean intellectuals’ diplomatic trips to this country; the first one as Chilean consul in Burma (he travelled to India in 1928 and 1950), and the other as a consul in India (from 1949 to 1952). The aim is to study their prose to track the impressions, the imaginary, and the vision of the Oriental world that both writers display in the context of their own Western, particularly Latin-American, idiosyncrasy. Given the theoretical perspectives of Said, Gruzinski, Klengel, Ortiz, Kushigian, Nagy-Zekmi and Pinedo, this article compares the approach of Neuruda and Juan Marín towards the cultural elements of the country, as well as their brands of exploration of the history of India and its religious principles, exoticism, British colonialism, among others. Neruda and Marín tried to demonstrate the high complexity of this culture, as similar or more complex than Western culture.

Keywords: India, chronicles, Juan Marín, orientalism, Pablo Neruda, South-South.

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India in the Memoirs of the 19th-Century Mexican Traveler Ignacio Martínez

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Óscar Figueroa

Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–15. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.04

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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India in the Memoirs of the 19th-Century Mexican Traveler Ignacio Martínez

Abstract

This is the first study ever on the chapter devoted to India included in the memoirs of the travel around the globe made in the nineteenth century by the Mexican physician and general Ignacio Martínez (1844-1891). Published in two versions, a short one called Viaje universal (1886) and a longer one called Alrededor del mundo (1888?), Martínez’s memoirs are one of the earliest recorded documents of a Mexican traveler in Asia during the independent period. Unlike twentieth-century Mexican intellectual circles, which perceived India as a source of literary, philosophical, and spiritual inspiration, the image displayed in Martínez’s account is framed in the ideals of material progress, rational objectivity, and anticlericalism. As I argue, these values guided Martínez’s recourse to European Orientalist motifs, but also produced a horizontal appreciation of India in light of his Mexican circumstances. This resulted in an ambivalent representation that fluctuates between appraisal of Indian material merits and deep aversion to its religious life.

Keywords: Ignacio Martínez (1844-1891), Viaje universal (1886), Mexican travel literature, India and Mexico, Orientalism.

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