This dissertation explores the relationship between artistic production and political intervention in Peru at the time of the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2001. I examine the cultural field post-TRC as an enabling environment for the discussion of the armed conflict and the political violence that ensued from 1980-2000. By analyzing a corpus of diverse mediums including popular theater and performance art, photography, as well as literature and film, I arrive at new conclusions regarding the ongoing battles for historical memory. I argue that these art works have been favorable avenues for political intervention because they have opened the door to fruitful discussions regarding the Peruvian "dirty war," and because they have revealed and validated views not included in any of the mainstream, officially endorsed theories propagated by the State or the TRC. The main argument behind my analysis is that while the cultural corpus studied stemmed from an initial effort made by the TRC to include symbolic materials into their investigation, the artistic field allowed for a rounder and more complex vision of the violence. I trace the development of this practice in the theater performances by Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani during the TRC's Public Audiences in Ayacucho (2002), the photographic exhibit Yuyanapaq (2003) in Lima, as well as more widely disseminated artistic works, such as Herralde award winning novel La hora azul (2005) by Alonso Cueto and homonymous film (2014) by Evelyne Pegot-Ogier. My dissertation provides an in depth study of the Peruvian armed conflict emphasizing the importance of the narrative created by the TRC in the construction of a corpus of resistance art capable of facilitating an alternative discussion that takes into account the conflictive and fragmented nature of memory.

In April 9, 1948 a massive riot broke out on the streets of Bogot� as a result of the assassination of the popular leader Jorge Eli�cer Gait�n. The violence escalated rapidly, but by the end of the day, the military forces had regained control. Despite the government’s efforts, the outrage at the news of the assassination had spread throughout the nation, awakening a wave of violence that would last over a decade and that would be remembered as the period of la Violencia.

La Violencia was notable not only for the popular revolt in the cities and the countryside that lead to the deaths of thousands of people, but also for the profound impact it had on Colombian culture in general and literature in particular. This dissertation focuses on the Colombian novel during the fifties and sixties, which was produced in great numbers as a response from writers who tried to interpret and understand the violence that surrounded them. This surge represented a point of contention between those literary critics and writers like Eduardo Zalamea Borda, Hernando T�llez, and Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez all of whom, claimed that, in Colombia, the novel as a genre did not exist (with only a few exceptions), and those who argued exactly the opposite. These debates were pivotal specifically due to Garc�a M�rquez’s important texts—in 1959 and in 1960— and, in effect, sentenced the novel of la Violencia to occupy a small corner in Colombian literature. Furthermore, Garc�a M�rquez’s verdict influenced the works of literary critics that studied the Colombian novel in later decades to the point that only the same small group of novels were mentioned by the critics, leaving behind a vast literary corpus worthy of examination.

This dissertation also examines Garc�a M�rquez’s experience in Cartagena as he fled the violence in the capital as well as his early beginnings as a journalist and how this professional endeavor influenced his literary works. In addition, I propose that his 1958 short novel El coronel no tiene quien le escriba was his direct response to la Violencia and to his 1959 article in which he vehemently criticized the novels of the period.

Due to the nature of Colombia’s endemic violence, I explore from la Violencia, a phenomenon characterized by bipartisan conflicts, to a plural violence that has taken multiple forms as new agents in the socio-political strata emerge. Hence, creating a re-signification of the traditional violence to multiple violencias. As a consequence, the novel will also adapt to the new violencias as a way make sense of reality, and different subgenres will be used to capture it. Finally, I discuss, in detail, the testimonial novel, the sicaresca novel and the novella as distinct manifestations of the plurality the violence.

Between 2005 and 2015, a distinctly cosmopolitan form of art cinema flourished in Chile. Alberto Fuguet, Pablo Larraín, Alicia Scherson, and Sebastián Silva, who released their first feature-length films between 2005 and 2007, are markedly cosmopolitan filmmakers who exemplify this strain of cinema. Four films by these filmmakers—Fuguet’s Se arrienda (2005), Larraín’s Tony Manero (2008), Scherson’s Il Futuro (2013), and Silva’s Nasty Baby (2015)—are emblematic of the cosmopolitan and porous qualities of early-21st-century Chilean art cinema. The defining features of these four films are the cosmopolitan profiles of their filmmakers; their creators’ use of transnational strategies of production, distribution, and exhibition; their circulation at film festivals; their affiliation with the genre of art cinema; and their depiction of cinephilia and filmmaking as quintessentially cosmopolitan practices.

The release of these Chilean productions and co-productions coincides with the beginning of the post-Transition to Democracy period as well as the expansion and maturation of the country’s film industry. From 2005 through 2015, the number of new Chilean productions and co-productions released in local theaters increased significantly over the preceding Transition to Democracy period (1988-2005). Many of these films were exhibited at some of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, including Berlin, Cannes, and Venice. This decade-long series of success at film festivals culminated at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival, where Larraín’s El club and Silva’s Nasty Baby won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize and Teddy Award, respectively. Notwithstanding its accumulation of awards and prestige at film festivals, contemporary Chilean art cinema has received limited attention from scholars, especially outside of Chile. This dissertation contributes to the conversation about Chile’s art cinema and film industry in the early-21st century.

This dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first two chapters, I focus on the structural factors shaping the development of this cinema between 2005 and 2015. In the first chapter, I analyze Chile’s film industry with a focus on production output, audiences, legislation, and organizations involved in the production, distribution, and exhibition of Chilean cinema. In the second chapter, I examine film festivals’ multifaceted roles as exhibitors, curators, producers, and distributors of Chilean art film. The second half of the dissertation, chapters three through six, offers close analyses of Se arrienda, Tony Manero, Il Futuro, and Nasty Baby and their representation of cosmopolitanism through the interrelated practices of cinephilia and filmmaking.

"Staged Technologies: From Multimedia Theatre to Cybernetic Theatre in Spain and the Americas" explores the use of new technologies in theatre today and how they are incorporated in Latin American, Spanish and U.S. Latino Theatre productions from 1985-2008. From the wide spectrum of possibilities the dissertation privileges multimedia and cybernetic theatrical practices. The study is based on the analysis of twenty-one theatrical productions from Spain, Chile and U.S. Latinos' within their national as well as international theatrical and historical context. The pieces include staged productions by well-known theatrical groups, new avant-garde groups, street theatre and a religious festival. The aim of this diversity is to demonstrate that multimedia and cybernetic theatrical practices are transnational and transcultural. In this study the main topic of discussion is the use of multimedia and digital techniques as a means of theatrical and performative communication. It also sheds light on the relationship between theatre production and economic trends such as postmodernism, neoliberalism and globalization.

The corpus of study is a multitude of very diverse theatrical forms and expressions. As is common in theatre, Latin American, Spanish and U.S. Latino playwrights search for new aesthetics and avant-garde means by which to communicate with a very large community and multicultural society. The assumption of this research is that the performances with emphasis on technologies coexist with a diversity of theatrical trends and developed parallel to other more canonical theatrical discourses. Yet much of the mode of theatrical communication and techniques by theatre groups today has appropriated a cyber-cultural means of communication.

I argue that these trends in contemporary theatre transcends national boundaries and implements transnational and multimedia codes to reach today's spectator, one whose visual competence is strongly influenced by contemporary visual cultures, cinema, modern art, television, marketing, mass media, digital and cyber-culture. The new technologies allow the contemporary playwright new modes of representation and to include new cultural and social spaces such as women, gay, lesbian, marginal individuals and marginal social groups. The approach I use integrates cultural studies, semiotics of theatre, discourses theories, performance, film and visual studies. In spite of critics who question multimedia, cybernetic and internet theatre, I propose that playwrights have adapted to the new technologies in order to represent singular world visions and social imaginaries. Multimedia, virtual, cyber and internet theatres are the contemporary versions of a long tradition of the interrelationship between technologies and theatre.