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Hearing with the Eyes: Voice in Written and Visual Discourses and the Ghost of a Contemporary Warrior

Beltran-Aponte, MariaTeresa

Abstract Details

2010, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.

This doctoral thesis talks about voice in the testimonial pieces entitled Loyal Soldiers in the Cocaine Kingdom: tales of drugs, mules and gunmen and La Sierra. In the context of this work of reflection, I consider voice in a broad sense, to include body gestures in their performance and prosody. These contemporary literary practices are about historical processes that have to do with the dynamics of the illegal drug trade and the armed conflict. In that sense, what is presented in the next pages is an interaction between the voice with its gestural dimension and the social contexts. In order to cope with this relation in a group of testimonials in written and in audio-visual form, I make use of the Sanskrit theory of dhvani, that allows me to listen through the eyes, the suggestive clothing that dresses the voices. In doing so, in this thesis I explore the stories told by The Mule Driver, Scuzzball, Hanged Man, Sharon, The Nun, The Puppet, Edison, Cielo and Jesús, proposing that through the epithelium of suggestion with which the voices are covered, is possible to hear and see, the emergence of a contemporary archetype of a warrior. All these reflections are bound together to establish a historical trial in which the character’s ventriloquist voices constitute precocious testimonies, in other words, they shoot ahead through the gestural dimension, some of the effects that the hegemonic orders are having over societies. In this historical trial, that takes place in the courtroom proper to the studied literary practices, the evidences, consequently, represent a challenge to the legal language. As an ultimate goal, the explorations of these thesis intent to get closer to the force and intensity of the manifested experiences expressed by the voices in the testimonies, that by means of psychoanalytic reasoning, highlight the impossibility of being symbolized, therefore, the image of the warrior is just a metaphorical vehicle that tries to sight the real.

Ileana Rodriguez, Humanities Distinguished Professor (Advisor)
Laura Podalsky, PhD (Committee Member)
Ignacio Corona, PhD (Committee Member)
James Moore III, PhD (Committee Member)

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Beltran-Aponte, M. (2010). Hearing with the Eyes: Voice in Written and Visual Discourses and the Ghost of a Contemporary Warrior [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1275423339

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Beltran-Aponte, MariaTeresa. Hearing with the Eyes: Voice in Written and Visual Discourses and the Ghost of a Contemporary Warrior. 2010. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1275423339.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Beltran-Aponte, MariaTeresa. "Hearing with the Eyes: Voice in Written and Visual Discourses and the Ghost of a Contemporary Warrior." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1275423339

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)