Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

In This IssueAuthor(s): Susan LarsonSource: Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Vol. 8 (2004), pp. 5-6Published by: Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20641697 .

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Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

In This Issue

Creating images depicting the struggle of immigrants during their attempt to cross

the Strait of Gibraltar, painter Pilar Rodiles startlingly and creatively inserts herself

into her canvases to paint representations of the ocean which holds silhouettes of the

dead painted on a sheet of acetate. As can been seen in the image on the cover which

is examined in the Yeon-Soo Kim's critical analysis of Rodiles s work, the boundaries

between the self and other can be questioned in such a way that proximity between

the artist herself and the immigrants is constantly reinforced. The spirit of the

intention of this painter to bridge the gap between theory and praxis, between the

aesthetic and political, is what drives much of the work done by the scholars

featured here. The essays published in this volume range from a study of the

individual moral subject in the Boston-based Vazquez Montalban novel El

estrangulador (Aguado) to a look at the marginalization of indigenous peoples

occurring within nationalizing narratives as found in maquiladora laborer's

testimonials and border fiction (Fallon); from the exploration of the translatability of

the notion of diaspora seen through the lens of Cuban American Achy Obejas's novel

Days of Awe (Goldman) to the meaning of Basque author Ramon Saizarbitoria's

"High Modernist" aesthetic to a national literary tradition with a strong history of

orality (Izurieta).

As the Arizona Journal completes its eighth year, an increasingly diverse group of

scholars begin to send in their work for consideration and evaluation, and in the

process define and expand the field of Hispanic Cultural Studies. M'bare N'gom and Michael Ugarte, the Guest Co-Editors of this volume's special section

"Equatorial Guinea in Spanish Letters" have taken a big step toward filling the need

for specificity concerning the realities of Africa and Equatorial Guinea with regard to

their complex relations with Europe. Access to and dissemination of Equatoguinean culture is limited. Producing a creative work of dissent in Equatorial Guinea may land an author or artist in jail. The efforts of N'gom and Ugarte have yielded what

we believe to be a very exciting contribution to our understanding of Equatoguinean culture in its broadest sense, with essays on literary texts as embodiments of an

aesthetic construction and indicators of cultural conflicts that take place in the

country's music, language, cuisine, and other cultural manifestations. We continue

our commitment to publishing articles that offer innovative ways of teaching Cultural Studies with "Vanishing Timidity: A Roundtable on African Literature and

Culture in the Language and Literature Classroom," where eight scholars share their

experiences and strategies for introducing Afro-Hispanic culture to students and

increasing interdisciplinary communication in order to focus more attention on

African Studies in general. "For Hispanists (most of us residents of that so-called

First World, reapers of the fruits of colonialism), Cultural Studies encourages us to

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make attempts to understand the postcolonial underpinnings of the objects of our

study" (182), writes Michael Ugarte in his essay here on the novels of Donato

Ndongo-Bidyogo.

The geographical, political, economic and representational issues connecting almost

all of the essays published in these pages over the past eight years will take yet another turn in the pages of the next volume of the Arizona Journal. Why does the

market occupy such a prominent position in literary and cultural studies? Is it

possible to talk about literary production today without addressing the market forces

in our global economy? In Volume 9, Guest Editors Christine Henseler and

Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola will address these questions by offering a wide-ranging reflection on the cultural marketplace in Spanish and Latin American literature from

the turn of the twentieth century to the present in their co-edited collection of

essays, "Market Matters." Our next volume will also feature a variety of points of

view on the topic "Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis" to

try to assess and understand how the Patriot Act of 2001 may be affecting

scholarship and teaching in the field of Hispanic Studies.

Susan Larson

Managing Editor

University of Kentucky

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