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K-State Today

October 31, 2013

Zambrano to present 'The Homeless: New Protagonists on the Contemporary Spanish Stage' Nov. 1

Submitted by Derek Hillard

Rossana Fialdini Zambrano, visiting assistant professor in modern languages, will present a modern languages' Signatures Lecture on literary, linguistic and cultural matters at 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1,
in the Hemisphere Room at Hale Library.

The title of the lecture is "The Homeless: New Protagonists on the Contemporary Spanish Stage."

The homeless have become the truly tragic characters of the social-urban reality of our time. Although the phenomenon of homelessness has increased alarmingly in the past 12 years in Spain — and in many other developed countries — the homeless themselves remain in the most obscure anonymity as an unreadable reality for most of us.

This is not the case, however, for one of the better known female playwrights in contemporary Spain, Paloma Pedrero, or for two talented members of a younger generation, Luis Miguel González Cruz and Juan Pablo Heras. These three playwrights have recuperated the homeless in their dramatic narratives, albeit in very different ways.

By analyzing the construction of homeless identity in "Underground" by Cruz, "Intemperie," or "Out in the Open," by Heras, and "Caídos del cielo," or "The Fallen from Heaven," by Pedrero, Zambrano's presentation will explore the cultural and social implications of three very different versions of an identity crisis.