Editorial

After continuing with the reevaluation process of our journal in the Publindex National Bibliographical Index, we are pleased to announce that La Palabra journal has obtained classification in the B Category. If we have persisted in this task it is because, according to journal archiving parameters, our magazine tends to improve with the each new issue; nevertheless, we insist that the evaluation process of publications, including that of academic journals, is unfortunately being forced to submit to formal structures that are moved principally by the market and the utilitarian usage of publications for quality measurement and evaluation in universities and research centers. It is evident that these methodologies bear the mark of savage capitalism that has been taking possession of education and knowledge production for some time now. We insist that the only profitable element we have found in these omnipresent structures is the greater visibility of our publication, and the national and international dissemination of our work.

This issue presents 10 positively evaluated articles among 26, which have been submitted to rigorous evaluation by double blind peers specialized in field of each article; linked to different national and international institutions. Articles approved for the final edition were organized in 4 sections.

The first section contains 3 reflection articles directed to the study of woman in Colombian XIX century literature, specializing in Tomás Carrasquilla´s La Marquesa de Yolombó [:The marquise of Yolombo]. This set of studies forms part of the research proyect "Woman in Colombian Literature”; and focus on the main character of this literary work: Doña Bárbara Caballero and what she represents in ideological, aesthetic and political terms. In this way, the novel presents a critical position with respect to the aesthetic norms of the times, that were endorsed, in turn, by dominant political and ideological positions in the Colombian XIX century. Doña Bárbara Caballero is also characterized as a progressive liberal woman in a conservative context in which it is impossible to impose her position; this argument is developed in the article about "the metaphor of inclusion” of woman between the end of the XIX and the beggining of the XX centuries.

The second section presents two articles that, through a study of Colombian lyrical poetry on the one hand, and through the work of Manuel Zapata Olivella on the other, coincide in showing the emergence of Colombian literary works which defy traditionalist aesthetic positions.

In the third section, the reader of La Palabra will find an article that studies the book Voces [:Voices] by the argentine writer Antonio Porchia, highlighting the marginal role this writer occupied in his time period, due to his particular way of writing and the weak reception of his work in the moment of its writing. In this section about Latin American Literature, we also include a study of the novel Simone, which obtained the Premio Rómulo Gallegos Prize last year, and proposes a disenchanted view of literature in the XXI century.

In the last section, we present, for the second time a series of articles that contain the advances of research projects at the UPTC Masters in Literature. In these essays we find a vision that diverges from the traditional form of literary studies, and that is working to open new forms of dialogue with other disciplines and artistic expressions such as performance art, embodiment studies, and literary works which question the traditionalist vision of the literary artifact.

As always we invite our readers to share the conclusions and reflections that they may extract from this new issue of our journal.

Witton Becerra Mayorga
Editor
Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja-Boyacá. Colombia