Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Argentina becomes a key player in the global market by turning into a major exporter of natural resources. As it secures economic prosperity, the country enters a period of accelerated modernization. Hence, by the first decades of the twentieth century, Argentina will witness the spectacular growth of Buenos Aires, the rapid commercialization of the city, and the drastic increase of its population—with the mass influx of immigrants arriving on its shores. The changes brought about by the country’s transition into modernity contributed to the increasing sociopolitical, socioeconomic and sociocultural tensions that mark this period and were lived out as crises by the porte�os.

In my dissertation, I will study Roberto Arlt’s Aguafuertes porte�as in light of two modern sociocultural crises—national culture and gender relations—and the respective debates emerging during the first decades of the twentieth century about both. I will argue that his aguafuertes point to the rise of an alternative model of literature and gender relations.

The issue of national literature as part of national identity has mostly been examined through the works of the martinfierristas; however, Arlt’s intervention in the debate via his aguafuertes is gaining critical attention. Critics have mainly focused on his use and defense of spoken language, but also on his alternative representation of Buenos Aires and the porte�os to underscore how he combats cultural nationalist ideologies. In the process, they have contributed to our understanding of the modern qualities of his writing. However, in my present work, I propose that against the backdrop of this debate, Arlt formulates a modern theory of national literature: national literature is that which is read (purchased) by its people. By conceptualizing literature in terms of a relationship with its readers, Arlt points to culture’s entrance onto the marketplace and its impact on the value and function of literature. Aside from his foreword to Los lanzallamas, which is widely read as his literary manifesto, Arlt did not write a literary manifesto per se. Yet a close reading of his aguafuertes that deal with the question of what is national literature allows us to reconstruct his proposed modern concept of literature, previously unexplored, which I define in chapter 2.

Critics have already observed that Arlt systematically dedicates three months to the subject of marriage and courtship and that he is critical of traditional gender relations. Yet by highlighting his critical treatment of women, they have tended to minimize the position of the author vis-�-vis the conservative sector on the issue of gender relations. However, by reading these aguafuertes in light of the sociocultural transformations set in motion by Argentina’s transition into modernity and the discourses proliferating on family, love and sex, I argue that in contrast to the leading intellectuals, statesmen and public health physicians who defend the traditional gender relations paradigm by singling out women’s entrance onto the public sphere as the source of the current crisis of the family and nation, Arlt calls for its revision by portraying the crisis as a conflict between the established and an alternative gender relations emerging during this period, which I call modern love and is subject of many of his aguafuertes. I also address Arlt’s contradictory position on women—where he simultaneously targets women for the crisis and advocates for the liberalization of women—and question critics’ commonly held assumption that he is misogynist. Signaling the impact that Argentina’s transition into modernity was having on everyday practices and the concept of gender relations, the street of Buenos Aires turns into a stage of modern love. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s and Marshall Berman’s interpretation of Baudelaire’s poetry, I examine the seemingly clich� imageries associated with modern love registered in his aguafuertes as well as in his novels—sudden (dis)encounter and public display of affection—and propose that the street was not merely a stage but also a catalyst of modern love.

This dissertation compares the portrayal of the city of Santiago de Chile in the novels Mala onda (1991) and Sudor (2016) of Alberto Fuguet (1964-), analyzing the evolution of Santiago from a boring and hostile city to a stimulating and welcoming metropolis. From an urban and economic perspective, it examines how the representation of the reorganized spatiality and segregated urban layout embodies the sociopolitical and economic dynamics of Santiago, particularly since a series of macroeconomic reforms became the direct reason why the city was reconfigured at such drastic level. Through a comparative study of both novels, I argue that the representation of loss and recovery of public space highlights the impact of the market economy in the urban development. The portrayal of Santiago in Mala onda is of a city whose physical form changed abruptly after neoliberalism was consolidated as the new orthodoxy at the end of the 20th century, pointing to the economic model as responsible for the privatization and loss of public space. The representation of Santiago in Sudor displays the recovery of public space, a dynamic that while worth celebrating, illustrates how Santiago has not been able to escape neoliberalism’s logic, since the improvement is in response to urban competitiveness in the 21st century. My thesis is that Santiago’s portrayal shows how the amendment to the general urban plan of the city and large territorial extension has changed under an economic system that favors the accumulation of globalized capital over the well-being of local communities. Furthermore, I read Alberto Fuguet’s novels through the theoretical lenses of the “right to the city” by tracing the urban evolution represented in his work, which delineates a new Santiago that integrates the inhabitants’ rights through urban criteria and a democratic response to the challenges of urban life. This dissertation asserts strategies and transformative social and political processes within urban society, whose problems are exercised in the public spaces of the city.

Colombia has endured one of the longest-running internal armed conflicts in the Western Hemisphere. For more than fifty years, government forces, guerrillas, paramilitaries, drug cartels, and criminal groups have subjected civilians to horrendous crimes. Disappearances, massacres, displacement, and kidnappings have been the reality of many Colombians, especially those who live in rural areas where the State’s presence is limited. As a society that has grown under these circumstances, Colombia’s cultural manifestations are not indifferent to this socio-political context. There is no writer, film director, or artist whose work has not touched at some point and in some way upon the topic of the conflict and the violence it involved. However, the nature of these approaches varies greatly. It fluctuates between explicit realism to symbolism, depending on the time and the type of violence represented. At the turn of the millennium, Colombia’s news was full of bloody images of war and death. Television and film productions swamped urban communities with stories of hitmen and drug lords, and literature was fascinated with criminals’ biographies. The immediate effect of this overexposure of images and narratives was urban society’s weariness of any representation of violence and, ultimately, its indifference. This fatigue condemned rural communities to disregard and oblivion. This dissertation examines how drama, literature, and film produced between 2000 and 2016 have unveiled right-wing paramilitary violence and portrayed the victims’ struggle for justice. Through the close analysis of novels, films, and plays, I prove that there is a tendency in these works to avoid graphic depiction of violence. Instead, they use literary devices, such as metaphors, personifications, choral narrations, child narrators, and others, to approach this subject. I suggest that this shift towards more implicit representations results from a conscious opposition to the normalization of violence. And it is part of an attempt not only to spotlight the victims, their voices, and their life stories, but also to reengage and evoke empathy within the urban communities. I have chosen this time frame because, during these years, Colombia experienced an upsurge of paramilitary violence and two peace processes. Between 2003 and 2006, Alvaro Uribe’s government signed the demobilization process with the AUC, the largest paramilitary organization at the time, followed by Juan Manuel Santos’ peace agreement with the FARC, the oldest Latin American guerrilla force. The cultural production surrounding paramilitarism grows exponentially during these years because of these historical and political factors. The literature, film, and theatre produced after 2016, the post-agreement period, obeys different dynamics and merits its own reflections.