Comic heroes or saviours? Constructing alternative identities in a social critical approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language.

Current educational systems primarily focus on the verbal and logico-mathematical aptitude of students, thus neglecting the cultivation of visual literacy and critical literacy skills, although the ubiquity of images in school textbooks necessitates the inclusion of a ‘visual grammar’ metalanguage in educational practices. The aim of the present paper is to present and analyse how a group of eighteen sixth grade students of an EFL classroom in a state primary school in Thessaloniki managed to ‘deconstruct’ the depiction of superheroes/heroines in comic books or action movies, in an effort to represent them in a more humane and mundane way, where their super powers are summoned to the advantage of a society in need. The overall organization of the instructional intervention is built on an introductory phase, a main phase and a follow-up phase. The analysis of the students’ compositions relies on the application of the principles of critical visual literacy and the results display that through the process of scaffolding, the students can reject dominant representations of power and reconstruct cliché identities by re-exploring pre-existing roles. The end result, that is the classroom calendar compiled by twelve multimodal texts, manifests the students’ skilful utilization of both visual and verbal semiotic resources in a balanced way, with a view to transmitting their social messages taking into account the broader social, cultural and political context within which power relations and social roles constantly evolve and are constructed

Comic heroes or saviours? Constructing alternative identities in a social critical approach to the teaching of English as a foreign language.

Current educational systems primarily focus on the verbal and logico-mathematical aptitude of students, thus neglecting the cultivation of visual literacy and critical literacy skills, although the ubiquity of images in school textbooks necessitates the inclusion of a ‘visual grammar’ metalanguage in educational practices. The aim of the present paper is to present and analyse how a group of eighteen sixth grade students of an EFL classroom in a state primary school in Thessaloniki managed to ‘deconstruct’ the depiction of superheroes/heroines in comic books or action movies, in an effort to represent them in a more humane and mundane way, where their super powers are summoned to the advantage of a society in need. The overall organization of the instructional intervention is built on an introductory phase, a main phase and a follow-up phase. The analysis of the students’ compositions relies on the application of the principles of critical visual literacy and the results display that through the process of scaffolding, the students can reject dominant representations of power and reconstruct cliché identities by re-exploring pre-existing roles. The end result, that is the classroom calendar compiled by twelve multimodal texts, manifests the students’ skilful utilization of both visual and verbal semiotic resources in a balanced way, with a view to transmitting their social messages taking into account the broader social, cultural and political context within which power relations and social roles constantly evolve and are constructed

Sitios de exclusión y sitios de inclusión: liminalidades espaciales y ambientales en las memorias de Jimmy Santiago Baca, Working in The Dark: Rreflections of a Barrio Poet (1992)

En un orden mundial articulado por una plétora de datos científico-tecnológicos, la esencia del ser parece más inasible que nunca. La representación identitaria se somete a múltiples, y a menudo solapadas, metamorfosis, mientras el yo parece enmarañarse en un ritual constante sin alcanzar una cristalización definitiva. Es el próposito de este artículo explorar aspectos del control y la interacción social, así como las liminalidades del entorno, que surgen de los intersticios entre el sometimiento y la libertad (la inclusión y la exclusión). En su quasi autobiografía Working in the Dark (1992), Jimmy Santiago Baca establece los aposentos de una prisión como el lugar para el nacimiento de una poesía comprometida. Este texto reformula la complicada relación entre los Humanos y la Naturaleza, y deviene un poderoso testimonio sobre la discriminación y los prejuicios, al tiempo que un compromiso declarado con la lucha de un grupo étnico por trascender los modelos prescritos de existencia.In a world-order articulated by a plethora of scientific/technological data, selfhood remains more elusive than ever. Identity-representation undergoes multiple and often overlapping metamorphoses, while the sense of self seems to be entangled in a constant rite to being, instead of aiming at a definitive crystallization. The aim of this paper is to explore sites of social interaction/control and the environmental liminalities arising at the interstices between subjugation and freedom (exclusion and inclusion). Jimmy Santiago Baca’s quasi autobiography Working in the Dark (1992) establishes the unnatural premises of a prison house as the locus for the birth of engaged poetry. This text rethinks the troubled relationship between Humans and Nature, and becomes powerful testimonials of discrimination and prejudice, as well as avowed commitments to an ethnic group’s struggle to transgress prescribed modes of existence

Retos contemporáneos en la literatura y cultura Chicana/Latina

Este articulo introductorio ofrece una perspectiva general del estado de la cuestión actual, incluyendo ensayos largos, notas de lectura, poemas y dibujos, además de un tributo in memoriam Rudolfo A. Anaya (1937-2020). Parece propio de las minorías transculturales en los EE. UU. (que afrontan la ideología con una visión polícroma) el poner a prueba los cánones, las normas y los géneros. Así, las expresiones literarias y culturales chicanas/latinas sirven como catalizadoras de la renovación y el cambio, no solo en cuanto contenidos sino en su uso más libre y experimental de las formas. Transgredir lo que se considera “normal” parece la única manera de tratar con las estructuras encorsetadas, y de este modo redefinir el mundo que nos rodea para resaltar la “verdadera” realidad de la normatividad artística.This introductory paper traces a general perspective of the nowadays Chicanx/Latinx state of the question, including articles, notes, creative poems and drawings, and a tribute in memoriam Rudolfo A. Anaya (1937-2020). Challenging canons, norms and genres seems to be particularly appropriate when tackling ideology from the polychromatic gaze of transcultural minorities in the US. As such, Chicanx/Latinx literary and artistic expressions act as catalysts of renovation and change, not only in terms of content but also playing with forms in a freer, experimental way. Transgressing what is considered “normal” seems to be the only way to cope with fringes and frames, and thus a contemporary redefinition of the world is reached to highlight the “real” truth of artistic normativity

Liminalities and Displacements: The Rites of Passage to Self-Identification in Chicano Writings

The aim of this paper is to explore the hermeneutics of selfhood under conditions of excruciating socio-political injustice, and to detect the rites of passage to self-conceptualization as unravelled in two Chicano literary writings: Tomás Rivera’s “…y no se lo tragó la tierra” (1971) and Tino Villanueva’s Scene from the Movie GIANT (1993). The purpose of this approach is to show how two different literary genres, namely a collection of vignettes and a book-length poem, tackle the problems of adolescent liminalities through the prism of Chicano experience in the borderlands. The two masterful texts present truthful and shocking testimonials of the inner conflicts endured by young Mexican-Americans toiling over the soil or experiencing marginalization in the back-row seat of a movie theatre in their attempt to carve a third space of existence among migrant campesinos and barrio inhabitants. Rivera and Villanueva venture bold explorations of the self-regulatory rites to ethnic identity, and provide the readers with stunning insights into the liminal aspects of identity, as realized in the contexts of discrimination and social oppression, and en route to an esoteric understanding of life.L’objectif de cet article est d’explorer l’herméneutique du soi face à une douloureuse injustice socio-politique et de détecter les rites de passage vers une auto-conceptualisation dévoilés dans les écrits de deux auteurs chicanos : “…y no se lo tragó la tierra” (1971) de Tomás Rivera et Scene from the Movie GIANT (1993) de Tino Villanueva. Le but de cette approche est de montrer comment deux genres littéraires différents, à savoir un recueil de vignettes et un opus poétique, abordent la liminalité des tourments de l’adolescence à travers le prisme de l’expérience chicano dans la zone transfrontalière. Ces deux œuvres puissantes présentent des témoignages authentiques et choquants des conflits internes vécus par les jeunes Américano-Mexicains qui cultivent laborieusement leur terre et qui sont confrontés à l’expression de leur marginalisation dans des films visionnés dans les salles de cinéma alors qu’ils tentent de se tailler un troisième espace vital parmi les campesinos migrants et les habitants des barrios. Rivera et Villanueva s’aventurent dans les explorations audacieuses des rites auto-réglementés d’une identité ethnique et fournissent aux lecteurs d’étonnants aperçus de la liminalité identitaire, présente dans des contextes de discrimination et d’oppression sociale menant à une appréhension ésotérique de la vie

Construction and Deconstruction: Self-Identity in Abeyance in Richard Wright's The Outsider (1953)

Abstract Modern concerns for identity reinforce self-image as an interplay between the desire for individualism and the inevitability of categorization. Self-identity looms not only as a philosophical and/or political claim to self-realization, but also as the disembodiment of Descartes' cogito. The implications are numerous: abolishment of the Nietzchean willpower, post-structuralist legitimation of the decentered subject, borderland identities, systematization of social relations, and self-contestation. The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which Richard Wright constructs and deconstructs identity as a sociopolitical and cultural statement. The central character of The Outsider, Cross Damon, attempts to dismantle the self from the webs of self-identification and social recognition in order to attain a newly-forged identity. Stemming from an innate longing to evade past and present Afro-American subject-roles, Damon's utopian attempt to a future identity ends in an epic-like defeat against the enormous powers of social constraint and surveillance, as embodied in the hunchbacked District Attorney, Ely Houston. The binary relation, personified in Cross Damon and Ely Houston's clash, poses Richard Wright's existential quest for meaning and a critique of society. Richard Wright's dominant query is to what extend the socio-political consolidation and/or claim to self-identity dominates over the dynamic potential of self-construction/sufficiency

Biodiesel production from edible and non-edible biomasses and its characterization

Biodiesel is considered one of the most viable renewable alternatives to its petroleum-derived counterpart. It can be produced from various sources, mainly via homogeneously alkali-catalyzed transesterification. Nevertheless, as the demand for edible oils grew for food and fuel, non-edible oils emerged as a more appealing choice for producing biodiesel. Waste cooking oils (WCOs) comprise an alternative and low-cost feedstock that are produced in vast quantities and can be used for biodiesel production. This study compares biodiesel properties produced by an uncooked sunflower oil obtained from a local bio-industry and a WCO sample collected from a fast food shop. Results showed that most biodiesel samples’ properties in both cases met the EN 14214 specifications. GC-MS chromatographs were similar in terms of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) composition. However, oxidation stability for both biodiesel samples and viscosity for the WCO biodiesel sample were out of specifications. Further investigation is required to improve biodiesel properties and optimize production conditions

Investigation of Petroleum Hydrocarbon Fingerprints of Water and Sediment Samples of the Nestos River Estuary in Northern Greece

The oil and gas industry is definitely considered the main contributor in the energy sector, acting as the lifeblood of our planet. However, environmental contamination by crude oil and petroleum products due to anthropogenic activities is of great concern. Nestos River springs from Bulgaria and has a total length of 234 km, from which 135 km belong on Greek land. It is globally recognized as nature’s miracle accommodating a variety of habitats, flora, and fauna species at the deltaic area protected by the RAMSAR Convention. In the current study, water and sediment samples from three different sites along the river course and other six sites of the delta region and the surrounding sea area were selected in order to investigate the potential environmental impact of the nearby oil and gas industry in the Prinos-Kavala basin that operates over 40 years. The samples were analyzed by fingerprinting techniques using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Crude oil samples and different petroleum products were also analyzed to disclose specific markers (biomarkers) that characterize the different sources of oil spills. The analytical data revealed that the distribution of biomarkers is a valuable tool in oil spill identification as well as in their correlation to suspected sources. Extract ion chromatograms of the reference samples showed significant differences in the distribution of n-alkane, isoprenoid, sterane, triterpane, and dibenzothiophene compounds. The results on the analyzed water and sediment samples bared no evidence of environmental hazards associated with the hydrocarbon exploration and production activities of the neighboring oil and gas company