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Publications

February 12, 2017

Balbuena Publishes Homeless Tongues

Homeless Tongues: Poetry and Languages of the Sephardic Diaspora

Finalist for the 2016 National Jewish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council.

This book examines a group of multicultural Jewish poets to address the issue of multilingualism within a context of minor languages and literatures, nationalism, and diaspora. It introduces three writers working in minor or threatened languages who challenge the usual consensus of Jewish literature: Algerian Sadia Lévy, Israeli Margalit Matitiahu, and Argentine Juan Gelman. Each of them—Lévy in French and Hebrew, Matitiahu in Hebrew and Ladino, and Gelman in Spanish and Ladino—expresses a hybrid or composite Sephardic identity through a strategic choice of competing languages and intertexts. Monique R. Balbuena’s close literary readings of their works, which are mostly unknown in the United States, are strongly grounded in their social and historical context. Her focus on contemporary rather than classic Ladino poetry and her argument for the inclusion of Sephardic production in the canon of Jewish literature make Homeless Tongues a timely and unusual intervention.

Monique Rodrigues Balbuena is Associate Professor of Literature in the Clark Honors College and a Participating Faculty in the LAS program.

November 17, 2013

We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements by Lynn Stephen

We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements
by Lynn Stephen
Duke University Press
(September 2013)

A massive uprising against the Mexican state of Oaxaca began with the emergence of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) in June 2006. A coalition of more than 300 organizations, APPO disrupted the functions of Oaxaca’s government for six months. It began to develop an inclusive and participatory political vision for the state. Testimonials were broadcast on radio and television stations appropriated by APPO, shared at public demonstrations, debated in homes and in the streets, and disseminated around the world via the Internet.

The movement was met with violent repression. Participants were imprisoned, tortured, and even killed. Lynn Stephen emphasizes the crucial role of testimony in human rights work, indigenous cultural history, community and indigenous radio, and women’s articulation of their rights to speak and be heard. She also explores transborder support for APPO, particularly among Oaxacan immigrants in Los Angeles. The book is supplemented by a website featuring video testimonials, pictures, documents, and a timeline of key events.

About The Author

Lynn Stephen is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon and Zapotec Women: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Globalized Oaxaca, both also published by Duke University Press.

March 6, 2013

Trafalgar by Angelica Gorodischer, translated by Amalia Gladhart

When you run into Trafalgar Medrano at the Burgundy or the Jockey Club and he tells you about his latest intergalactic sales trip, don’t try to rush. Trafalgar likes to sketch things out over six or seven coffees. No one knows whether he actually travels to the stars, but he’s the best storyteller around, so why not sit back, let Marcos bring you something refreshing and enjoy the story?

Amalia Gladhart is Professor of Spanish and Head of the Department of Romance Languages. She teaches courses on Latin American theater and literary translation. In addition to Trafalgar, by Angelica Gorodischer, she is the translator of two novels by Ecuadorian writer Alicia Yanez Cossio-Beyond the Islands and The Potbellied Virgin-and the author of Detours (Burnside Review Press)