Editorial

Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless— Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness.   William Wordsworth   Después de los terrores del enamoramiento, de la alta ansiedad que lo flageló, de la definitiva pérdida y el socavón que fue del duelo,… Read more

The notion of apocalypse is a persistent myth and narrative present in every culture. Since its inception in biblical texts, it has now evolved to become a master narrative with specific imagery and plot functions. The apocalypse can be regarded as the symbol of a cleansing, a renewed order or devastating cataclysm. It can also… Read more

§ A Lo que en el ámbito de la cinematografía se conoce como “un autor de culto”, tiene, en el ámbito de la escritura, un nombre ligeramente distinto. De la más temprana etapa como lector, me recuerdo, un día en que una descarga eléctrica hizo efectiva en un segundo una oscuridad vegetativa, leyendo, a la… Read more

Isolation/Alienation The theme of isolation is predominantly linked to the figure of the mad scientist. Traditionally the doctor or scientist in a horror film is an outcast figure that goes against the “normal” social order. Through the first part of Frankenstein, Henry shines with a glow of intensity that progressively diminishes as the monster comes… Read more

1 Hace cosa de diez años estudié a conciencia un repertorio de prejuicios bajo la forma de aforismos, cosa que sería condenable si los hubiera extraído directamente de un tomo decimonónico, pero que es excusable siendo que, simplemente, imprimí esos epigramas o aforismos o máximas si no inmorales, del todo amorales, directamente de un portal… Read more

Horror films are traditionally considered escapist narratives that deviate from social and historical categories. If we consider the kind of setting that Horror films traditionally favour –the haunted house, the unspecified European village, the cabin in the woods…– with their abstract time and space and plots usually unconnected with any national history, we might say… Read more

Agnès Varda’s acutely original documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) looks at the act of gleaning from different perspectives. I’m not sure if the word perspective is the right one. It would be more accurate to say that she comes across and reflects on different kinds of gleaning. We can distinguish three different types: gleaning,… Read more

La comprensión del Ulysses de James Joyce nos ha sido vedada salvo algunas sentencias que por su carácter doméstico alcanzan a todo comensal, verbigracia: “God made food, the devil the cooks” (Dios hizo la comida, el diablo a los cocineros) o como el doctor Subirat optimizó para su versión en castellano adaptando la rima perfecta:… Read more

Space can be variously represented in a work of art. The depiction of quantifiable and verisimilar space has slowly become an important aspect in cinema and literature. With the rise of urban spaces and capitalism, space ceased to be abstract as in romances and has turned into a sort of referent of the ecology and… Read more

Let’s try to sketch an outline of the kind of realism that was emerging in the United States at the close of the 19th Century with the rise of urbanism and capitalist culture. I’d like to do that by looking at the figure of Mrs. Sommers, or reconstructing a kind of profile from the bits… Read more