"The research value of this work needs little explication. These dissertations contain an enormous amount of original knowledge, only a portion of which has found its way into print. . . . Those of us working in Iberian or Latin American history owe the author a large thanks for making this material more accessible."NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL REVIEW

Transatlantic Studies: Latin America, Iberia, and Africa emerges from, and performs, an ongoing debate concerning the role of transatlantic approaches in the fields of Iberian, Latin American, African, and Luso-Brazilian studies. The innovative research and discussions contained in this volume's 35 essays by leading scholars in the field reframe the intertwined cultural histories of the diverse transnational spaces encompassed by the former Spanish and Portuguese empires. An emerging field, Transatlantic Studies seeks to provoke a discussion and a reconfiguration of the traditional academic notions of area studies, while critically engaging the concepts of national cultures and postcolonial relations among Spain, Portugal and their former colonies. Crucially, Transatlantic Studies transgresses national boundaries without dehistoricizing or decontextualizing the texts it seeks to incorporate within this new framework.

Abstracts of doctoral dissertations from Pittsburgh University are included in Dissertation abstracts (016.378 M626) v. 13, 1953-

Ever since 1945, when Gabriela Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Hispanic Foundation in the Library of Congress had been looking forward to an opportunity to record her voice for posterity. She graciously accepted the invitation, despite her policy of not reading her poetry in public. The Library's recording of the Chilean poet is the only one extant. The materials accumulated since 1943 were acknowledged to be unique and of the highest quality. In 1958 the Library evolved a program for a well-integrated collection of noteworthy Hispanic literature--either verse or prose--on tape. With the aid of a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, a pilot project was undertaken in the same year, September to December inclusive. The salient feature of the project was that the Library commissioned the curator of the Archive, Francisco Aguilera, to visit Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay and obtain recordings on magnetic tape expressly for the Library of Congress. During September and November 1960, Panama, Guatemala, and Mexico were visited, and in April-June 1961 collecting continued in Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.