Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Arts and Humanities

Forms of Oral Communication

Application: An administrative document conveying a request to a specific issuer or recipient.

Dialogue: The most common form of oral communication.

Monologue: A unique oral manifestation where a speaker addresses an audience for an extended period.

Talking Shop: An informal meeting where individuals exchange views on various topics.

Debate: A formal, planned, and publicized version of a symposium.

Contemporary Spanish Theater

Post-Civil War Era

The evolution of Spanish theater, narrative, and lyric was significantly influenced by the civil war and its aftermath. From 1939, the Spanish theatrical landscape was marked by exile and the loss of authors during the war.

Argumentation

Argumentative Discourse: Aims to persuade or... Continue reading "Effective Communication: Forms, Techniques, and Structures" »

Characteristics of Sign Language

Sign language has a number of characteristics that allow us to characterize it:

1. Arbitrariness. For Saussure, the bond linking the signifier and signified is radically arbitrary. Arbitrary means "unmotivated." Thus, the idea of "flower" is not bound by any relation with the sound sequence flower. Proof of this is that in other languages, the signifier is different, for example, fleur in French. However, other linguists, such as Benveniste, prefer to speak of it as conventional.
2. Linear. The signifier unfolds in time and is therefore a "timeline." In contrast to visual signifiers (a photograph, for example), acoustic signifiers have no more than the timeline: their elements are presented one after the other, forming

Love and Poetry in Miguel Hernandez

For poetry is always an act of love. Her first published poems included comparisons where the theme of love is seen through Platonic forms. Poetry, such as that in Lunas, impregnated with baroque style, suggests sexual connotations of some mythical figures, using fruit similes to refer to sex.

Symbolism related to seasons appears: Spring represents sexuality, impurity, and provocation to sin. Winter represents chastity.

We can make a clear difference between his early work and his later work, El Rayo que no Cesa. In El Rayo que no Cesa, love is often seen from a distance ('from the barrier'), a relentless force ('that does not stop'). The lightning bolt ('Ray') is used as a metaphor to express the heartache... Continue reading "Miguel Hernandez: Love, Imagery, and Symbols" »

The Legend of the Artist: Shaping Artistic Identity

In the eighteenth century, the cultural movement of the Enlightenment fully recognized the intellectual character of artistic activity. Artists began to be separated from mere craft due to the inherent intellectual and conceptual nature of their work, moving beyond manual labor. The emerging bourgeois-liberal ideology reinforced the identity of the artist as an exceptional individual, often seen as a defender of freedom and independence of character.

The concept of artistic genius, as applied to artists, was significantly developed by Romanticism. This powerful cultural movement, which peaked in the mid-nineteenth century, was instrumental in creating the enduring legend of the artist. This... Continue reading "Shaping the Artist's Identity: From Enlightenment to Modern Art" »

Neo-Pop Art and its Influence

54 artists transitioned from Neo-Pop Art and Dadaism, influenced by figures like Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg. Jasper Johns treated painting as an object, incorporating everyday elements and neutralizing paint over his increasingly pictorial speech. This converted the final result into a simple presentation of things, emphasizing the materialization of an idea over the action of painting.

Characteristics of Neo-Pop Art

• Rejection of abstract expressionism
• Use of realistic, figurative language
• Reflection of contemporary ideas and appearances
• Thematic focus on the urban environment, social and cultural aspects of comics, magazines, newspapers, and photos
• Absence of critical approaches
• Nontraditional pictorial treatment
• Fusion

The Avant-Garde Movements in Art and Literature

The word avant-garde refers to a set of artistic and literary movements that took place in Europe and America during the first third of the twentieth century. The common denominator of the avant-garde is a break not only with the prior art and literature but with all of the Western aesthetic tradition. The avant-garde emerged in a climate of dissatisfaction with the present at all levels (political, social, economic, artistic...), which became acute after the atrocities of the First World War.

Although the various avant-garde movements have specific traits, they share some characteristics:

• Antirealism. As a result of their disagreement with reality, the authors break with the idea of art and literature

Lope de Vega's Poetic and Theatrical Legacy

Lope de Vega wrote countless poems. He wrote popular-type compositions (ballads, carols) and engaged in nature worship (sonnets, especially). Vega's poetry is, in general, vital, spontaneous, and simple. The theater was the most innovative and successful genre in the seventeenth century. The tastes and demands of the public prompted Lope to renovate the Spanish theater of the time. In his "New Art of Making Comedies," he established the patterns of New Comedy:

• A mixture of the tragic and the comic in the same work: This mixture provided greater variety and animation to the work.
• Rupture of the rule of three unities: Humanists had decided that a play should be confined to a single action (unity of action)

Narrative Texts

Narrative texts use a transmitter to tell real or fictional events. They are usually accompanied by dialogue and description. The structure typically includes:

• Initial situation
• Conflict
• Resolution or denouement

In a narrative text, we must analyze:

• Prevalence of the referential function
• Use of past tense or present, according to the narrator's point of view
• Use of verbs introduced in the dialogues
• Use of simple, compound, and juxtaposed sentences
• Use of adverbs or adverbial phrases

Classification of Adverbs

• Of place: here, there, far, inside, outside, close, behind, ahead, around
• Of time: today, yesterday, tomorrow, now, last night, yet, soon, after, then, still
• Of manner: well, badly, good, better, fairly, fast, slowly, and those ending

Descartes: Innate Ideas and Certainty

Understanding Innate Ideas and Nativism

Innate ideas are concepts understood a priori, without requiring empirical demonstration. The mind possesses these ideas inherently. According to Descartes, all innate ideas are clear and distinct. The famous Cogito ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am) is considered an innate idea.

The existence of innate ideas is a fundamental assertion of Rationalism. One of its core tenets is that certain ideas and principles are innate to the understanding, possessed independently of any sensory experience. This concept is known as Nativism: the belief that there are innate ideas, inherent to the understanding, which are not derived from generalizations of sensory experience.

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Kinship and Family

Defining Family

Family: A group of people directly linked by kinship ties, where adult members take responsibility for childcare. Kinship ties are established through marriage or genealogical lines, connecting individuals within a family. Marriage: A socially recognized and approved union between two adults. Marriage creates kinship between individuals and their families.

Family Structures

Nuclear Family: Two adults in a relationship living together with their children (biological or adopted).

Monogamy/Polygyny: The practice of one person being married to one or multiple spouses.

Unilineal Descent: Kinship traced through one parent (father or mother).

Cognatic Affiliation: Kinship traced through both parents. Bilateral cognatic... Continue reading "Kinship and Family Structures: A Sociological and Anthropological Perspective" »