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In the beginning of the twentieth century, after its rapid insertion into the vortex of oil and mineral extraction, Venezuela was forced to re-think its relationship with nature. This process of rethink, characterised by an eagerness for modernisation, resulted in a series of discourses focused on Venezuela's Amazonia as a repository of possibilities. This paper analyses how these possibilities were channelled through the metaphor of el secreto de la tierra, tracing an early reading of the ideological configuration of Venezuela and its Amazonia as a land of inexhaustible material and poetic richness. This metaphor was voiced by a set of socio-ecological discourses written about the Venezuelan Amazon, including the essay on Venezuelan geography and culture by Enrique Bernardo Núñez Una ojeada al mapa de Venezuela (1939). The paper focuses on the representation of this region as a set of discursive constructions entangled with the naturalisation of the modernising ideal that has fuelled the imaginaries of material growth and rentier capitalism in Venezuela. The concluding remarks will point to how such a reading can help us to understand a discursive and poetic radicalisation embedded in conflicting approaches to the nature-culture confluence in the Venezuelan Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) took up arms in Mexico against the daily oppressions and injustices faced by Indigenous Mexicans in neo-colonial political systems and juridical orders tailored to their discrimination and economic exploitation. The EZLN soon broadened its demands from local Indigenous Mexicans to encompass other socials groups oppressed by global neoliberalism. The mestizo spokesperson of the EZLN, Subcomandante Marcos, accordingly employed a comprehensive communication strategy fundamentally involving storytelling and myth-making. This paper will outline a revolutionary utopian method capable of informing anti-colonial practices emerging from Marcos’ stories, which ultimately envisage a world capable of holding other worlds by reinvigorating democracy and enriching our current conceptions of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders worldwide commit to the goal of sustainable development and transport, and to the promotion of public transport (PT) as one backbone of sustainable transport. Evaluation frameworks have been developed to aid municipalities and operators in purposefully shaping their PT systems. These frameworks differ greatly in their scope and consideration of the different sustainability dimensions, and in addition, they focus on industrialized countries. The goal of this study is to provide a systematic overview of existing frameworks for evaluating the sustainability of PT systems with a particular focus on Latin America for the first time, to identify possible gaps that result from the specific characteristics of Latin American PT systems and finally to derive research needs and recommendations for this region. The analysis includes three types of articles: scientific papers, international guidelines published by NGOs, and local as well as national Latin American guidelines for PT evaluation. The 69 identified relevant references reveal that Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM), followed by Assessment Indicator Models (AIM) are the preferred evaluation frameworks. Among the MCDM methods, the Analytical Hierarchy Process was the most frequently approach. We found a high prevalence of studies taking society and municipalities' perspective (both 46%), followed by combinations (users, operators, municipalities − 37%), and the users' perspective (14%). The review further shows that the Latin American context is not sufficiently considered in the existing frameworks and that further research is needed to develop frameworks that comprehensively and systematically consider all sustainability dimensions for this specific spatial context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the short stories by the Guatemalan author Eduardo Halfon, a third-generation Holocaust > writer; these stories are analyzed as a particular case of "world literature" as defined by David Damrosch. Halfon's travel writings to Poland are thus interpreted according to the host (Polish) culture's values and needs. First, the study concentrates on how Halfon's travel accounts to Warsaw question and interact with the changing historical narratives about the Poles as "implicated subjects", witnesses and accomplices in the Shoah. Secondly, the analysis deals with the Halfon's narrative experiences in the provincial city of Lodz, his grandfather's birthplace, where the crystalized discourses about the past are altered by inverting roles of victims and perpetrators and introducing other possible interpretative approaches (based on cultural implication of emotions and theories of the gaze). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a literary-historical analysis of the reception of Latin American literature in the literary magazines Polja and Delo during the Cold War. These magazines, published in Serbia, had an important place in the literary life of the former Yugoslavia. The aim of the paper is to show how Latin American literature entered Yugoslav magazines, and which writers and literary ideas were most represented. The first part of the article is dedicated to presenting the political and literary situation in former Yugoslavia and, more precisely, the way Yugoslav culture opened up to Latin America. The central part of the article analyses translations, critical texts, and essays published in Polja magazine and then those published in Delo magazine. It highlights how, although they lacked a systematic approach, Yugoslav periodicals and publishers have been closely linked, and together they have contributed to building new cultural ties between the former Yugoslavia and Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a literary-historical analysis of the reception of Latin American literature in the literary magazines Polja and Delo during the Cold War. These magazines, published in Serbia, had an important place in the literary life of the former Yugoslavia. The aim of the paper is to show how Latin American literature entered Yugoslav magazines, and which writers and literary ideas were most represented. The first part of the article is dedicated to presenting the political and literary situation in former Yugoslavia and, more precisely, the way Yugoslav culture opened up to Latin America. The central part of the article analyses translations, critical texts, and essays published in Polja magazine and then those published in Delo magazine. It highlights how, although they lacked a systematic approach, Yugoslav periodicals and publishers have been closely linked, and together they have contributed to building new cultural ties between the former Yugoslavia and Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]