Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

La crítica y el silencio en el discurso racial en Puerto Rico es un texto que se desborda refulgente con la imagen en su portada de una mujer negra/mulata cuya originalidad artística pertenece al loiceño Samuel Lind. La mujer no está bajo la sombra, posa deslumbrante y sobre sus hombros descansa el manto de la luminiscencia. En su regazo custodia la diversidad alimenticia que emanadora por igual de la fuerza de la palabra.La Dra. Zaira Rivera Casellas, Catedrática del Departamento de Estudios Hispánicos de la Facultad de Humanidades de la Universidad de Puerto Rico de Río Piedras nos regala en este puñado de ensayos lo que hace mucho tiempo esperábamos. Publicado bajo la Editorial Terranova, su primera edición en formato digital, y hoy de forma impresa de 2015.

This article proposes the importance of incorporating ideas, voices and feelings of Caribbean Intellectuals to breakthrough towards decolonization of power, knowledge and being. With the conviction that the contributions of said voices will affix new energy to the Social Sciences to the inner view of the General Studies, enriching and broadening the contexts in which these are positioned and from a stance that questions Eurocentric and universal premises -frequently posed in the General Studies- which asserts that the best thoughts and works come from Europe. From the Caribbean standpoint, the social sciences and the world are understood differently. These are compelling reasons to rescue those ideas and place them in the General Studies context, which could be an interesting contribution to foster the development of Latin-American and Caribbean identities in University of Puerto Rico students.

At the beginning of the 19th Century Puerto Rico was a country without a definite character, a place that started with a series of continuous migrations. The Spanish Royal Decree Cédula de Gracias of 1815 strongly promoted a policy of emigration among its citizens in the Continent, as well in mainland Spain, and of refugees and foreigners from Europe, North America and the Caribbean. The new Puerto Rico that emerged, that immigrants created during the century, as an important sugar producer in the Americas, came from various lineages: exiles, dissenters, slaves and, also, adventurers; many persecuted and vulnerable people, rich and poor, of decayed economies, regimes, and wars.

In times of globalization and neoliberalism, consumerism, competition and individualism are presented as the main axes of society. Aware of this, it is necessary to rethink the different aspects of it, and among them Education. It's in this context that we propose Capoeira as an alternative educational practice.Capoeira is a cultural manifestation that has its roots in the Afro- Brazilian culture and it's characterized by multiple sides such as music, dance, fight and philosophy, among others. Also, its evolution has been a phenomenon closely related to big historical and social processes. One of these processes try to legitimate the struggle for the black emancipation. This last, legitimates Capoeira as a free and cultural manifestation par excellence.

This essay is intended to be part of the discussion on the construction of national identities in the Caribbean and the ever-present controversy of the racial question in the national projects of the region. In the case of the Cuban intellectual Fernando Ortiz, we can see the transformation in his discourse regarding the contributions of Afro descendant culture in the island of Cuba. At first Ortiz, influenced by the ideas of the Lombrosian positivism binds the black population to what he calls the "low life" or to crime, ignorance and immorality, alluding to the necessity of sanitizing this population through the removal of any African cultural trait in order to integrate them into the Cuban national project. However, some two decades later, after his experience in the political arena, Ortiz dramatically changes position to appreciate and value the cultural contributions of Cuban blacks to the national culture.

From a phenomenological and hermeneutic perspective, in this essay the theme of evil is examined in its philosophical and anthropological vision, and then to notice its presence in the field of literary creation. In this way, the objective assumed is basically reflecting how that dichotomist relationship between good and evil has found a fertile space in the literary field for its representation, testimony, recreation and exploration, which is not limited to a simple expression but in a comprehensive space of the human condition from its multiple facets, observing with it the imbricated relationship that exists between literature, culture and society.

Ámbar mulato ha sido clasificado por la crítica como un texto ambivalente de la subjetividad mulata. Si históricamente la mujer negra ha sido representada como la sexualizada y la mujer blanca como la reprimida, en este texto la autora juega con la dicotomía mujer negra/mujer blanca representándola de manera inversa, donde la mujer negra es la reprimida y la mujer blanca la sexualizada. Este cambio en la ecuación suscita varias interrogantes que se abordan a lo largo de este artículo: ¿A qué se debe este cambio? ¿Contra qué imágenes o estereotipos está luchando Pellot? ¿La mujer blanca sexualizada a la que la voz poética aspira ser, es la mujer blanca feminista? ¿A qué aspira realmente la voz poética cuando dice que quiere ser blanca?

Este número da continuidad el estudio e investigación afrodescendiente transdisciplinario y transgresivo. Tiene como objetivo reconocer la importancia, trascendencia e imbricación de la consciencia afrodescendiente en todo espacio académico, científico, político, económico y social. Con este segundo número se revoluciona la tarea de dar cuenta de una historia afrodescendiente de un siglo XX silenciada y la dialéctica de contradicción-afirmación del ser y pensarse afro. Inserta la afrodescendencia en el espacio de poder: literatura, cientificidad, educación, espiritualidad y genialidad.

This work reviews the last book of Ray Jackendoff titled User's Guide to Thought and Meaning. As the title suggests, the book pretends to be a guide that explains how our thoughts work and their significance. Jackendoff, a doctoral student of the laureate linguistic Noam Chomsky has an extensive career doing research on the cognitive system which rules natural languages. The author of the aforementioned book is, in addition, the writer of eleven other books on related topics such as generative grammar, the fundamentals of language and their mental structures.

The assessment evaluates, among other criteria, the competences on research and creation that the undergraduate student acquires in his path through university, On the other hand, the authors’ discipline-based education research required the designing and validation of an evaluation instrument capable of measuring the student improvement in knowledge and comprehension of the medullar topics that are offered in the course Ciencia, Biotecnología y Sociedad. Additionally, it measured the “non-STEM” participant transition in interest and satisfaction toward aspects such as: continuing graduate studies, investigating in their field of expertise, or taking other courses in the Biological Sciences field. The CiBi 3028 course is a curricular innovation in which Biotechnology is the topic that interlace the rest of the topics to be discussed. The laboratory experiences are totally related to the main topic. The designed measuring tool consists of three (3) parts. The first one consists in a survey about sociodemographic variables of the participants. The second part is a questionnaire that permits to evaluate the levels of interest and satisfaction of the students taking CiBi 3028. Meanwhile, the third part consists of a diagnostic test to evaluate the progress of the alumni on the medullar concepts and the laboratory procedures that are discussed and practiced in the course. The measuring tool was evaluated by a panel of three professors. After this peer evaluation, a pilot test of the instrument was administrated to a 27 students’ group of CiBi 3028. The data collected from this pilot test are described in this paper. The results of the factorial analysis that was carried out for the evaluation of the instrument show correlations in a factor greater than 0.40, which lets retain all the instrument items without modifications. For the instrument’s reliability, the Cronbach’s Alpha test was used, in which is obtained a value of 0.77. The result allows to certify it as valid and adequate for its utilization in the education research project carried out by the authors. The instrument format and the described validation protocol could be adapted for the evaluation of diverse courses and curricular innovations for the different disciplines that comprise the General Education.