ALPHA. Revista de Artes, Letras y Filosofía
ALPHA. Revista de Artes, Letras y Filosofía es una publicación académica de acceso abierto, editada por el Departamento de Humanidades y Artes de la Universidad de Los Lagos. Desde su fundación, su objetivo es motivar y fortalecer el diálogo e intercambio de artículos originales de investigaciones en Literatura, Lingüística y Filosofía en idioma español. Este margen de acción incluye colaboraciones en artes, estudios culturales, teoría crítica, o temas que, sin pertenecer exclusivamente a alguna de estas áreas del conocimiento, constituyen un punto de encuentro y son el espacio para fortalecer estas áreas de interés. Publica semestralmente en formato digital artículos de investigación, que son evaluados bajo el sistema de pares doble ciego, y sin cargo para los autores. Revista ALPHA es financiada institucionalmente, y se encuentra indexada en Web of Science, Scopus, SciELO, The MLA International Bibliography, entre otras bases de datos internacionales.
Departamento de Humanidades y Arte. Universidad de los Lagos.
Review of the phonetic-phonological inventory of Aymara spoken in Chile and its vitality: a study based on acoustic and spectrographic analysis
This work aims to analyze the phones and phonemes of Aymara spoken in Chile. Based on a sample of 17,938 sounds of this language, the goal is to propose an inventory based on Poblete and Salas (1997) and through the realization of acoustic-statistical studies, spectrographic analysis, with special attention to the vitality of the phonemes. The results indicate that all phonemes are phonetically realized as expected, that the variations agree with what has been reported in previous studies, and that, in phonological terms, the language remains highly vital.
Aymara, phonemes, allophones, phonological vitality
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniela Mena Sanhueza, Darío Fuentes Grandón, Mauricio Figueroa Candia
Processing rt of grammatical colocations in learners of Spanish as a foreign language
A main concern in cognitive research in second language acquisition is to determine how the L2 is processed in real time. This study presents the results of an experiment that analyzes processing rt (reaction time) of grammatical collocations in anglophone learners and native speakers (NS) of Spanish. The objective was to examine whether those units (e.g. reírse de) tend to be processed more rapidly than their non-collocational counterparts (e.g. reírse a). The results suggest that the collocational attribute favors processing speed in both groups, and that it tends to be more analytical in learners. These findings underscore the importance of grammatical collocation teaching and support their psychological validation.
Copyright (c) 2025 René Oportus, Jorge Maluenda Albornoz
Representaciones de pueblos originarios en la historieta chilena contemporánea. Un catastro de publicaciones entre 1998-2023
This article examines the representation of indigenous peoples in Chilean comics published between 1998 and 2023, analyzing 57 identified titles. The study reveals a significant increase in the production and diversification of these narratives, coinciding with sociopolitical changes in Chile that have reconfigured the relationships between the state and indigenous peoples. A predominance of representations of the Mapuche people (59.6%) is observed, followed by the Selk'nam (19.3%) and Rapa Nui (8.8%). The analysis covers format, temporality, target audience, and genre, evidencing a trend toward more complex and multidimensional narratives. This new scenario of comic production is critically discussed as a space for cultural negotiation, identity construction, and the articulation of alternative narratives.
Dossier: Representaciones sociales en la narrativa gráfica contemporánea
Copyright (c) 2025 Tomás Gaete Altamirano, María Loreto Castro, Sebastián Vargas Pérez
From the non-being of the colonized subject to being in Frantz Fanon. Decolonization towards another humanism
Pensar caminos a lo humano de modo deconstructivo ante la modernidad, el colonialismo y el capital es ineluctable sin referir a la historia, la episteme, la política en territorios como América Latina y Abya Yala. Es primordial hacer teoría en este camino deconstructivo que nos aseveren un comprender más profundo ante los desafíos de descolonización de nuestro presente que continúan vigentes.
Gender and Violence in Ernesto “El Chango” García Cabral’s Cartoons (1920-1939)
This paper delves into the illustrations of Mexican artist Ernesto "El Chango" García Cabral (1890-1968), focusing on depictions of violence in the gender relations. By analyzing his graphics from the 1920s to 1939, the study explores how García Cabral employs the art deco style to portray the "modern girl" of the upper classes. While overlooking the social transformations experienced by women from other social strata, he leverages his high media exposure to diversify the imagery of the period, critiquing the new bourgeoisie and remnants of the Porfiriato regime. Thus, this research sheds light on the non-canonical cultural production of the time and the ideological stances within post-revolutionary Mexico, specifically in relation to gender representations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maricruz Castro Ricalde
Nomadismo laboral: una propuesta de lectura de Condorito como metáfora de la precariedad laboral en la era de la globalización
Este artículo propone una lectura de la historieta chilena Condorito como metáfora de la precariedad laboral en la era de la globalización. Apoyado en la teoría laboral de Ulrich Beck, en particular sus planteamientos sobre la sociedad del riesgo, la precarización y la individualización, el estudio realiza un análisis de contenido de un corpus de 456 historietas publicadas entre 1955 y 2023. Los resultados muestran que la historieta despliega subjetividades laborales sometidas a la inestabilidad estructural, donde el empleo aparece siempre en riesgo de pérdida y las trayectorias profesionales se configuran bajo condiciones de incertidumbre, flexibilidad e informalidad. La multiplicidad de ocupaciones asumidas por los personajes no se traduce en movilidad ascendente, sino en una constante exposición al desempleo y a la inseguridad. Asimismo, el proceso de individualización de las relaciones laborales disuelve mediaciones colectivas y empuja a los sujetos a biografías de “hágalo usted mismo”, en las que el emprendimiento y el endeudamiento se entrelazan como formas dominantes de subjetivación. Desde esta perspectiva, Condorito funciona como un archivo cultural que refleja las transformaciones laborales chilenas de las últimas siete décadas y permite comprender, en clave popular, los efectos sociales y las configuraciones de subjetividad que la modernidad tardía proyecta sobre el mundo del trabajo.
La narrativa gráfica mapuche contemporánea. Desde los boletines a la obra de Pedro Melinao.
Con un enfoque estético e intercultural este trabajo indaga cómo se actualiza el lenguaje visual mapuche ancestral en los nuevos soportes y cánones discursivos de la narrativa gráfica contemporánea, teniendo como referencia los primeros Boletines hasta la obra del arquitecto y artista visual Pedro Melinao, acotado a su Weblog Malón. En estas obras se observa un humor gráfico orientado a la crítica política, el estilo directo marcado por una estética realista, y una función de reafirmación y visibilización de la identidad cultural. Particularmente, la obra de Melinao se caracteriza por escenas costumbristas e históricas, el retrato, y metáforas visuales que exponen la relación del conflicto intercultural mediante rasgos estereotipados de unos y de otros; a nivel del canon discursivo, genera dispositivos conceptuales con impronta mapuche resignificando el canon occidental; y, a nivel cultural, introduce una lectura política sobre las acciones y acontecimientos desde la perspectiva del azmapu o normativa mapuche. En síntesis, estas obras actualizan elementos de las expresiones ancestrales, y, desde su especificidad discursiva, amplían las características de las expresiones artísticas contemporáneas dinamizando el actual sistema de arte y literatura mapuche.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mabel Egle García-Barrera
REVISTA ALPHA: CUATRO DÉCADAS DE DIÁLOGO INTERDISCIPLINARIO
Copyright (c) 2025 Óscar Garrido Álvarez. Rector Universidad de Los Lagos
Hamlet FERNÁNDEZ DÍAZ, Estética violada. Teoría de la recepción de las prácticas artísticas posmodernas. São Carlos: Pedro & João Editores, 2024. 319 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yessy Villavicencio Simón
Josefina ARAOS, Daniel MANSUY, Catalina SILES, Manfred SVENSSON, Deshacer el cuerpo. Cuatro objeciones a la agenda trans. Instituto de Estudios de la Sociedad, 2025. 172 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 Linet Hernández Moredo
Sabiduría, Pueblo, Humanidad: Para un examen de la obra de Gastón Soublette
Our work explores the scope of wisdom as a central paradigm in the work of Gastón Soublette, proposing its link with the consecutive paradigms of people and humanity. Starting from the author's express interest in wisdom as a horizon differentiated from academic philosophy, our research advances towards an elucidation of wisdom in Soublette as an improper, transhistorical question essentially determined by nature. Highlighting respectively the “sense” and the “law of analogy” as the object and strategy of wisdom, our work delves into the relationships between wisdom and indigenous and popular cultures as a manifestations of plain humanity. In this way, the problem of an archetypology of the human opens up, illuminated by Soublette through the figure of Christ and the wise men of prehistoric China.
Soublette, Wisdom, People, Humanity, Sense
Análisis comparativo de la investigación de la enseñanza de lengua china, entre China y los países hispanohablantes
This research applies the visual analysis software Citespace to conduct a statistical and comparative analysis of Chinese language teaching (CLT) until this moment in Spanish-speaking countries by using two databases: China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Dialnet from Spain. This analysis focuses on the publication year, authorship, co-authorship, keyword clustering, and other relevant article indicators, etc. It aims to summarize the differences and similarities in CLT in Spanish-speaking countries between China and Spanish-speaking countries nowadays. The research reveals that academic studies on CLT in Spanish-speaking countries are quite similar between China and Spain. Research in both China and Spain regarding CLT in Spanish-speaking countries is increasing and has underlaid fruitful results. However, differences have been found in the depth, breadth, and interdisciplinary perspectives of such research. Through the analysis of CLT in both regions, this study concludes that both need to strengthen and integrate cooperation and exchange in the academic field of CLT to leverage their respective strengths and learn from each other.
Copyright (c) 2025 Liang Qian, Ming Yang, Chen Hao
Study on the style of translation of the culture-specific items of the Analects (Lunyu): analysis based on the parallel corpus compiling the versions of Pérez Arroyo and Suárez Girard
The study of translation style is becoming increasingly significant in the field of Corpus-Based Translation Studies (CBTS). This research, grounded in a self-constructed parallel corpus, aims to analyze the stylistic profiles in the translation of culture-specific items in the Analects (Lunyu) by Pérez Arroyo (1999) and Suárez Girard (1997). This corpus, created through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, allows us to explore the stylistic characteristics at the lexical, syntactic, and discursive levels, and to identify the similarities and particularities among the translated versions, as well as the trends followed by the translators in addressing culture-specific items. Based on the results obtained, suggestions are provided for the translation of culture-specific items with the goal of enhancing future translations of this Confucian classic.
You too, Obama? The argumentative force of the label Conspiracy theory
In this article I analyze the explicit use of the label conspiracy theory in political communication from the argumentative point of view. I am not interested here in the content of any specific conspiracy theory, but in the kind of argumentative force the label has when used by a political speaker to refer to opponents. The examples discussed are public statements by two contemporary center-left American leaders. To show the kind of argumentative force that the label conspiracy theory conveys when used in political discourse, I reconstruct the speakers’ arguments using Walton diagrams. I also apply Tindale's rhetorical notion of making present and Govier’s ideas about logical and social oppositions to advance the idea that a social dynamic based on a radical dichotomy is at play as soon as the label conspiracy theory is mentioned.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cristián Santibáñez Yáñez
Mainländer, lector de Spinoza: encuentros y desencuentros con el panteísmo
Mainländer’s philosophy is strongly inspired by Schopenhauer’s pessimism. However, he also deeply admired Spinoza for his life and work. This article defends the thesis that Mainländer, despite rejecting pantheism for scientific reasons, inherits fundamental conceptions from Spinoza to his system: the concept of substance, the nature of politics and the suicide of God. To do this: (i) the denial of God in the world is explained as a scientific necessity; (ii) what Mainländer understands by pantheism is described, and; (iii) the influence of Spinoza on Mainländer is analyzed. It is concluded that for a more appropriate understanding of Mainländer’s philosophy, it is necessary to distance him from the shadow of Schopenhauer and consider the various sources that gave rise to his thought.
Desnaturalizando los fines del intercambio comercial: los límites del lucro y la usura en Tomás de Aquino
The purpose of this text is to show how Aquinas understands economic activity based on the need that subjects have to exchange goods and solve the shortcomings of life and, at the same time, establishes a clear distinction between the desire for profit and the satisfaction of needs. This means that for Aquinas the desire for enrichment and profit is not part of human nature, since it must be directed to the supreme good and not to the satisfaction of needs through the market.
Introduction to the Polian Approach to the Mental Limit: a Poposal
Knowledge is the most powerful human tool for opening up to reality. What is the scope of this tool? What is its most important limit? Leonardo Polo detects in the very functioning of human knowledge what he calls mental limit. Its main consequence is that it hinders our access to reality, supplanting real being by mental presence. Polo explains that recognizing this problem is the first step to solve it. This article proposes an accessible approach to the Polian method, explaining the context in which it arises and using, for that purpose, a didactic text by García Morente.
Copyright (c) 2025 Pablo Sahagún-Kunhardt
Los morenos del desierto tarapaqueño. baile y música en el norte chileno
The dances that participate in the religious festival of Tirana, in northern Chile, are presented in a great diversity of types and styles that respond to an ancient Andean tradition. Their documented presence dates back to the end of the 19th century and their persistence in Tarapacan religiosity is due to the fact that they are bearers of a message related to the redemption of marginalized castes and classes. Underlying its sound, choreutic and choreographic expressions is the drama of colonial slavery, the social exclusion of the republican periods and the saltpeter culture. This article reveals the different typologies and expressions of the brown dances that participate in the Tirana festival and towns in the Tarapacan foothills, their development in this territory and why they are an important part of the identity of northern Chile.
Morenos, religious dances, northern Chile, La Tirana.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jean Franco DAPONTE, Nicole Cortés Aliaga, Alberto Díaz Araya
The theory of justice in the work of José Ortega y Gasset.
The following pages deal with the theory of justice in the work of José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) based on a careful reading of the new edition of his Complete Works. We will take a tour of the entire work of the philosopher of vital reason, from his youth to his intellectual maturity, which is when the idea of justice, as well as his reflection on law and rights, gain in intensity.In the first period, Ortega conceived justice in an enlightened sense and from the idealism of his youth, influenced by the moral or practical philosophy of Kant. In a second moment of his thought, the Spanish philosopher will explore the idea of justice, as well as law and right, from his estimative theory or philosophy of values, as well as from his sociology. One of the aspects that we will show is the validity of his thought in this 21st century, since Ortega proposed the idea of global or sidereal justice.
José Ortega y Gasset; Sociology; philosophy; justice; law; values.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alejandro De Haro Honrubia
Crónicas de lo extraño, alteridades de lo ajeno: el primer viaje americano de Miguel Delibes (Chile, 1955)
El artículo versa sobre las crónicas del primer viaje americano del periodista y escritor vallisoletano Miguel Delibes con la finalidad de examinar la percepción de la alteridad, frente a lo ajeno y lo extraño, de quien proyecta emitir un diagnóstico social del continente en un breve itinerario trasatlántico. A modo de “cronista de Indias”, el viajero configura distintos prototipos estereotipados del Cono Sur de América mientras despunta un imaginario conservacionista, tanto ambiental como humanista, en su discurso.
Apuntes sobre poesía y ley en Ennio Moltedo y José Watanabe
This paper explores the relationship between poetry and law in two different poetry collections: Ennio Moltedo's La Noche (1999) and Jose Watanabe's Antígona (2000). The transformation of space or territory in the context of the authoritarian persistence of neoliberal Chile and the enslavement of bodies in the context of Fujimori's political brutality in Peru are two examples of how these relations allow writing to confront other realities. The weight of the law will be persistently represented in both spatiality and corporeality, giving rise to poetry as a language that would allow the subjects to heal from the failures that these procedures have created.
Poetry; Law; Ennio Moltedo; José Watanabe
Gladys MENDÍA. En la desnudez de la luz. Brevísima antología arbitraria. Poetas venezolanas de la década del sesenta, LP5 Editora, 2022, 212 pp.
El propósito que persigue la elaboración de una antología, estriba en el hecho de convocar voces así como estilos y tendencias de autores que pertenecen a una determinada época. A través del tiempo las antologías han estado medidas y resguardadas, además por un discurso hegemónico, a ratos establecidos también por una voz que las convoca, incluso, determinadas por esquemas que en ocasiones no dice su naturaleza. Es por ello que se hace necesaria la incursión de una antología donde no solo prime la convocatoria, sino otros aspectos, además de ofrecernos, a los lectores, lo que llamó Szpilbarg (2022) el capital simbólico. No obstante, es importante tener en cuenta que las antologías pueden también ofrecer una visión general de los escritores que se convocan, aparte de revisar su costado histórico que servirá de puente para las investigaciones futuras en el campo literario.
Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Joel Linares Simancas
Estudio de la explicitación de las relaciones lógicas adversativas en la traducción literaria del chino al español
This paper studies the syntactic explicitation of adversative logical relations in literary translation from Chinese to Spanish. Taking four modern Chinese literary works and their respective Spanish translated texts for example, we use a corpus-based quantitative method to describe the translation of adversative sentences and the use of Spanish adversative conjunctions. The results support the hypothesis of the explicitation of the adversative relations. The qualitative approach is further applied to explain the motivations of the explicitation. This study shows that the main factors that affect the degree of explicitness in the target text include: (1) the inherent characteristics of the translation, (2) the differences between Chinese and Spanish in the expression of logical relationships, (3) the use of adversative conjunctions in the source text, (4) the subjectivity of translator, such as attention given to target readers, the adopted translation strategy and methods.
The scotist dualism between nature and freedom and its consequences in Philosophy and Modern Culture
We propose to investigate here an aspect of Duns Scotus’s thought, which seems relevant to us in the formation of modern philosophy and culture, namely: his dualistic conception of freedom and nature, understood as contra-distinct or opposed. This scotist metaphysical and anthropological contrast was received and continued in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries until it influenced modern philosophy and culture (this dichotomy is very clear in Descartes and Kant, for example). We attempt a critical analysis of this conception of freedom and –so as not to remain only critical– we propose what it would be to conceive the relationship between freedom and nature in a non-voluntaristic way, that is, in terms of a more balanced complementarity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ignacio Miralbell Guerín
The latin american reception of La deshumanización del arte of Ortega y Gasset’s. The humanist answer
This article explores the way in which José Ortega y Gasset’s La deshumanización del arte (1925) was read and discussed in Latin America by Enrique Molina from a humanist perspective. The study is mainly concerned with the meaning that Ortega’s essay gives to the autonomous condition of modern art and the reasons why his ideas stand in an ethical opposition to humanism’s position regarding the nature of human being, culture, and the life of the spirit. In the end, what seems to be at stake in this quarrel is a philosophical and cultural debate on Latin America’s process of modernization and the meaning of the concept of “progress” as an ideal.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alejandro Valenzuela Aldridge
The lived body and feminism: contributions to thinking about problems of intersubjective life
The concept of "proper body" or "lived body" proposed by phenomenology has allowed the recognition of the fundamental experience of "being a body" as opposed to "having a body", that is, of being an embodied existence. The aim of this paper is to present the main elements of the phenomenological concept of the body, as developed by authors such as Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, and then to discuss this concept in the light of the contributions made by classical and contemporary feminist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir or Iris Marion Young among others. In this way we will review some fundamental ideas that feminism and gender studies have contributed to the reflection on women's bodies, highlighting the recognition of cultural and patriarchal mandates on the constitution of the female body, roles, identity and self-image. Finally, we will list some of the issues and problems that are open to reflection on the female body, in particular, the canons of beauty, fat bodies, and the body in old age.
The Argos of a thousand eyes and the immanent intuition of the spirit. The work of art as a sign of the spirit in Hegel
Starting from the encyclopaedic determination of the ideal, this paper analyses the Anschauung or intuition as a medium or form (Form) proper to art, problematising this determination based on the inclusion of representation as a figurative representation (bildliches Vorstellen) or as a figurative thought (vorbildliche Gedanke). It is then argued that in turn a double sense of Anschauung would be at play, and that in art the sensible immediacy of the first intuition, alien to the spirit, is overcome and replaced by the spiritual or spirit's own immediacy, i.e., it is replaced by an immediacy immanent to the spirit. At this point, an explanation of the signifying power of language is introduced to clarify the meaning of the sign in Hegel. Finally, it is proposed that, based on the distinction between the two senses of Anschauung and bearing in mind the meaning of the sign in Hegel, an understanding of the task of art can be achieved, namely that the work of art ceases to be a symbol and becomes a sign of the spirit or the Argos of a thousand eyes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Italo Debernardi Cárcamo
Character, Calligraphy and painting: Painting and Writing in "One in Shi Tao´s Arts of Painting"
The notion of the shared origin between calligraphy and painting is an important topic in the history of Chinese art. In this article, we aim to delve into the underlying connection that binds these two domains and to explore their significance in artistic creation. With this purpose, we will analyze the refined aesthetic conceptions presented by Master Shi Tao (1642-1707) in the chapter “Painting and Writing in One” from his seminal work Arts of Painting. This article will unveil that both artistic forms originate from the creative transformation of the “image of the heart,” and that there exists an isomorphic heterogeneity in the relationship between icon, characters, calligraphy, and painting. This pattern of correlation between the arts and nature embodies the ideal aesthetic principle pursued by Chinese artists as they seek a harmonious spiritual concord between humans and the universe.
To write, to exchange, to publish: Variable Piece #4: Secrets (1970) of Douglas Huebler and Secreto (2016-2020) of María P. Vila
This paper proposes a comparative study of Variable Piece #4: Secrets (1970) by the american conceptual artist Douglas Huebler (1924-1997) and Secreto (2016-2020) by the chilean artist María P. Vila. These are interactive works that, through an installation, involve the participation of the public through the writing of secrets. In both projects the secrets were made public in two instances: through their exchange among the participants and, later, through their publication in the form of an artist's book. Although the works by Huebler and Vila can be grouped under the “art as action” trend, due to their publication, two processes of rematerialization take place. The formal and material decisions made by the artists and editors account for profound differences in the conception of what an artist's book is and can be.
Copyright (c) 2025 Megumi Andrade Kobayashi
Muñecas malévolas y la anatomía artificial en textos de Rafael Maluenda y Rosario Ferré
La puertorriqueña Rosario Ferré y el chileno Rafael Maluenda transforman “lo artificial” en algo monstruoso. De un estado inerte, con apariencias engañosas las muñecas protagonistas de estos escritores captan la esencia del mal. A través del engaño la esencia artificial de las muñecas Polidoro de la novela de 1958 de Maluenda, Vampiro de trapo y Amalia del cuento del mismo nombre (de la colección Papeles de Pandora de Ferré, de 1976) es una trampa-son aparatos de decepción. Este informe propone que las muñecas de Maluenda y de Ferré son marcadores de posición de actos siniestros cuyos e/afectos dejan huellas en y hasta matan a sus “dueños” humanos. La anatomía artificial, fabricada por seres humanos y destinada a fines en el mundo corporal, ocupa un lugar “verdadero” y tocable. Esconde una maquinaria sólo empujada por la mano humana. En los textos examinados aquí las fuerzas externas hacen andar las muñecas y su “presencia” es resultado de eventos mucho más macabros que las dos muñecas...