Mario Vargas Llosa’s Lituma en los Andes (published in English as Death in the Andes) allows students to share an engaging literary character’s surprisingly successful efforts to learn to respect and appreciate the Other while, in turn, finding respect and his own place in another culture. Since Lituma’s journey to acceptance is one that many language learners dream of sharing, but may be poorly equipped to experience, in addition to its evident literary value, Lituma en los Andes is an excellent text for use in the foreign language classroom. Although not written from a Christian perspective, Christian students who seek to move beyond national and cultural boundaries and to find their places as citizens of God’s kingdom will find ample opportunity to learn from Lituma’s example as they scrutinize the acculturation process in progress and consider how it impacts those involved.

The reading of Griselda Gambaro’s novels elicits conflicting emotions in the reader due to the coexistence of the physically abnormal or the exaggeration of violence with a matter-of-fact, almost jovial narrative tone.  Both physical and social conditions in her narrations often seem unrealistically cruel to the point of distortion, yet the victims of cruelty accept their treatment as inevitable and even “normal.”  Her works provoke a mixed reaction of laughter and horror by their simultaneous evocation of the laughably exaggerated and the terrifyingly or disgustingly monstrous.  If, as she claims, she depicts life both as it is and as it could be, the latter is suggested chiefly by default.       

Often, when viewing a foreign-language film, students are unable to pick up subtle cultural cues essential to the film’s message. If, however, students are well-prepared for a film, they become perceptive critics of the larger themes represented in the film. In this article I address pedagogical issues surrounding the use of Cédric Klapisch’s film, Un air de famille [Family Resemblances] based on my experience in teaching a new interdisciplinary course at Calvin College.

From before the Crusades to Liberation Theology and beyond, the interaction of politics and religion has been a constant theme for the student of Iberoamerica. This essay examines how charismatic former president of Argentina Juan Domingo Perón used the metaphor politics is religion in his political discourse. The paper briefly describes the political, social and religious environment of Argentina just before the first Perón presidency, as well as the amorphous relationship between Perón and the Church. After outlining the cognitive linguistic approach to metaphor, the author presents metaphorical expressions of politics is religion used by Perón. This study not only provides specific examples of Perón’s increasing appropriation of religion for political purposes, but reveals how Perón greatly extended the sacrifice entailment of religion, using it to dignify and sanctify work.