Talk:Dictator novel

TO DO

Please add your name to any of these tasks that you want to take on.--Abarratt (talk) 21:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit Introduction

~to be completed at a later date --Abarratt (talk) 02:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit Historical Context

1. Dictators in Latin American History - everyone
2. Los Padres de la Patria - everyone

Edit Literary Context

1. Latin American Literature - everyone
2. Latin American Boom - everyone

Edit Development of the Genre

Forerunners

• Facundo - Sebastian
• Amalia - Julie

Classic Dictator Novels

• The President - Amanda
• El Gran Burundún Burundá ha muerto -
• King Ahab’s Feast -
• Reasons of State - Amanda
• I, the Supreme - Julie and Amanda
• The Autumn of the Patriarch - Sebastian
• The Lizard's Tail - Julie?
• The Perón Novel -
• The General and his Labyrinth - Sebastian
• The Feast of the Goat -

Edit Style and Themes

• New Techniques - Julie and Amanda
• Magical Realism - Amanda
• Gender - Sebastian

Fill in empty sections

It's probably not such a good idea to have sections that are completely empty. So I've added some text to one, and am putting the others here... That way they are a reminder of what needs to be done, but don't leave the article looking quite so unfinished. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 07:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

• Legacy

AddPhotos

• dictators
• book covers
• writers

I really don't know how to do this...--Abarratt (talk) 04:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that for the moment at least you shouldn't worry too much about images. The text is much more important. We can always add images later. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 05:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

How do I...?

I'm thinking a lot of issues are going to come up since we're very new to wikipedia..
1) Make headings within headings? As an example, how could I make "introduction and history" as subsections of my "to do" heading on this page??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abarratt (talk • contribs) 23:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

See WP:HEAD. Also be sure to sign all your posts using four tildes ~~~~ so that we know who is talking. Wrad (talk) 23:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Abarratt (talk) 00:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

2) So I used [tool]to generate a citation but the book The Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel is not written by Efrain Kristal but edited by him/her. How do I change this? The chapter in question is written by John King.--Abarratt (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to edit the template as the page itself displays it somehow. Not really any easy way to do this. Wrad (talk) 04:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Or you can just precede the template with "John King, 'Chapter name', in ", after the <ref> tag and before the curly brackets for the cite template. There may be a way to do it with the cite book template too; I hope someone else can post a note on that.

There's another approach to references that you may find easier. Take a look at Offa of Mercia: there's a "References" section which contains all the "cite book" templates, including separate lines for each chapter cited (see Featherstone, cited in Brown & Farr, for an example). There's also a "Notes" section which is where the footnotes end up. This way the actual <ref> tags only have to contain an abbreviated version of the footnote, which makes it much quicker to type (and easier to read at the bottom of the page, too). For example, in your case you might use "<ref>John King, "Chapter", in Kristal, Efraín, ed., ''Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel'', pp. 59-80.</ref>". (Actually I broke a couple of minor style rules in that, but let's not worry about that just yet.) I find this approach easier as the footnotes aren't clogged up with the templates, which are hard to read. Mike Christie (talk) 04:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try some of this tomorrow!--Abarratt (talk) 04:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I was looking at this and getting very confused. Can we break the references into notes now to make this easier?--Abarratt (talk) 00:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I've done the straightforward book citations -- take a look. There's now a references section which lists three books. I used the cite book template for those -- I just took it straight from the ref tags that you'd put in. Then with those listed under references, I reduced the ref tags to just show the last name, book title, and page number. That makes the notes a lot easier to read. If you don't like this approach, then just revert to the version before I started editing. If you do, I suggest you move the other sources down into the references section, too -- use {{cite web}} or {{cite journal}} as needed -- and then you can simplify the other refs too. Any questions, just let me know. Mike Christie (talk) 23:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC

I like using the cite templates for now on the ref. page just because it's quick for me. I'm assuming I'll have to change it later?--Abarratt (talk) 02:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. It's good to be internally consistent, but that's something to worry about when you're close to being done; in the meantime do whatever makes it easier for you. When you're ready for peer review or GA I (or someone else) will be happy to do a pass and makes things consistent (in whichever direction we decide). Mike Christie (talk) 03:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd really appreciate if someone could please fix the Calderon reference. I have no idea what I am doing.. :(--Abarratt (talk) 04:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Def'n of Latin America

Just curious what everyone thinks should be included under Latin America. Should we be discussing Caribbean authors? --Abarratt (talk) 04:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm about to sign off for the evening, so won't be able to respond further tonight, but my immediate reaction is that it should correspond to whatever the scholarly sources you're using mean when they say "Latin American". No reason to vary from their definition, is there? Or do they not agree with each other? Mike Christie (talk) 04:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow fast response! I was specifically thinking about compiling a list of dictators, thinking in particular about François Duvalier and Jean Claude Duvalier in Haiti--Abarratt (talk) 04:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I doubt if a comprehensive list would be useful for the article, though that's just a personal opinion. I assume the reason to list some of them would be to establish in the reader's mind the prevalence of dictatorships at the time the genre began. Would a map be a sensible way to do this? A picture of south and central America with each country coloured according to the nature of the government? Mike Christie (talk) 12:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

There's no necessary reason to exclude the Caribbean, at least not the French Caribbean. But I agree that a comprehensive list would be unhelpful. Better, some general indication: some "exemplary" dictators. I'd add that a map wouldn't help much, except perhaps (perhaps) a map of, say, Latin America in 1974, the height of the dictatorships. But these regimes change relatively often, and it's important to note that these novels cover a vast historical range: from the early nineteenth century (Yo el Supremo) to the 1970s (The Perón Novel).

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Unsourced Material

"Postmodern Latina writers of the 1980s, such as Ana Castillo and Giannina Braschi challenge the structure of the dictator novel. For example, in Giannina Braschi's mock diary, "The Intimate Diary of Solitude" (published in Empire of Dreams), the narrator of the Latin American Boom is shot by a lonely make-up artist who works at Macy's and despises the commercialization of her solitude."

I'm hoping this can be expanded and sourced as it clearly adds to this article!--Abarratt (talk) 21:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

HELP!

Somehow while editing our references page seems to have disappeared but it's still there when we click 'edit'. What has happened???--Abarratt (talk) 18:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay I erased my citation and now it's back...what am I doing wrong here?--Abarratt (talk) 19:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I fixed it. You just forgot to put a slash in the ref. Wrad (talk) 19:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow, didn't realize something so small would cause such a huge change. Really freaked me out. :S Thanks for your help.--Abarratt (talk) 19:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)