BOSTON COLLEGE Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Abstracts of 2016 Masters Candidates' Independent Research Projects

"A Creator between Two Worlds: Exploring the Limits of Film in the Works of Fernando León de Aranoa" This interdisciplinary study of the filmic and literary work of Fernando León de Aranoa highlights a reversal of the common pattern in which literature serves as the basis of a movie. In the case of Aranoa, his first movie Familia (1996) precedes his 2013 literary publication Aquí yacen dragones. Though the two works initially seem unrelated in structure and content, the theory of transduction allows for both to be compared as a type of adaptation that has undergone a transformation. That is to say, Familia (1996) served as inspiration for Aranoa in the creation of Aquí yacen dragones. By using transduction as a theoretical base, it becomes clear that the book of short stories is a type of literary reflection in which Aranoa enriches and solidifies the messages that he originally communicates throughout the movie. In this way, the two productions that span two different media are not rivals; rather, they complement each other and serve as a type of cross-fertilization and dialogue. First, an analysis of the themes spanning the two works reveals many similarities and initiates the first part of transduction: translation. Second, a further examination of the techniques associated with film and those of literature expose the transformations that took place which fulfills the second condition of transduction. Third, an investigation on the semiotic level, of word versus image, reveals that the two signifiers act as a twopronged strategy of verbal and visual persuasion. Therefore, the translated / transformed work, Aquí yacen dragones, offers viewer / readers even more insight into the artistic world of Fernando León de Aranoa.