Disencounters with Africa in the Portuguese Language: Postcolonial Literature and Theory in the Portuguese Postempire
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Disencounters with Africa in the Portuguese language: Postcolonial literature and theory in the Portuguese postempire De Portugese taal komt Afrika tegen: Postkoloniale literatuur en theorie in de Portugese postempire (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 24 maart 2017 des middags te 12.45 uur door Patricia Schor geboren op 26 mei 1969 te São Paulo, Brazilië Promotor: Prof.dr. P.R. de Medeiros 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 8 Outline of the argument ............................................................................................................. 8 Aims, method and contribution ................................................................................................. 9 Corpus ...................................................................................................................................... 12 Cultural-historical background ................................................................................................ 15 The Portuguese language in the Portuguese imaginary .................................................. 15 Africa in the Portuguese imaginary ................................................................................ 21 Realm of theory ....................................................................................................................... 23 The postempire: racelessness and gendered anti-blackness ............................................ 23 The postcolonial canon ................................................................................................... 30 Structure of the dissertation ..................................................................................................... 32 Section I. Postcolonial theories on Portuguese colonialism: vigilant inhabitations ............................... 34 Introduction to the Section ...................................................................................................... 35 Chapter 1. Situating Portuguese colonialism ........................................................................... 36 Chapter 2. Postcolonial translation .......................................................................................... 55 Chapter 3. Cognitive justice .................................................................................................... 76 Chapter 4. Colonial violence ................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 5. The racial element .................................................................................................. 91 Chapter 6. Community of the unhomely ............................................................................... 100 Chapter 7. Hospitality in language ........................................................................................ 106 Conclusions to the Section .................................................................................................... 115 3 Section II. Postcolonial literature on Portuguese colonialism: (in)hospitable homelands .................... 118 Introduction to the Section ..................................................................................................... 119 Chapter 8. Mia Couto’s O Último Voo do Flamingo: linguagens (dis)continuing coloniality .................................................................................. 121 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 121 Linguistic transformation .............................................................................................. 123 Displaced narrative ....................................................................................................... 130 Conceptions of language ............................................................................................... 132 Conceptions against location ........................................................................................ 140 Concluding remarks: emerging & submerging in the contact zone .............................. 145 Chapter 9. José Eduardo Agualusa (dis)locating the Portuguese language: O Vendedor de Passados trespasses the border ..................................................................... 147 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 147 Linguistic trade ............................................................................................................. 149 Narrative as ambiance of truth ...................................................................................... 150 Conceptions of language ............................................................................................... 151 Concluding remarks: common home within a bottle .................................................... 173 Chapter 10. António Lobo Antunes after language in the entrails of the postempire: O Esplendor de Portugal ....................................................................................................... 177 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 177 Narrative ....................................................................................................................... 180 Conceptions of language ............................................................................................... 185 Location: centre-home .................................................................................................. 215 Cultural translation - voice ............................................................................................ 219 Concluding remarks: Language conquest & occupation – the frontier of representation ............................... 229 Conclusions to the Section .................................................................................................... 232 General Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 238 Appendix. Postcolonial translation studies: translation stripped of innocence ...................................... 248 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 265 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 285 Samenvatting ............................................................................................................................ 286 Curriculum Vitae ..................................................................................................................... 287 4 Acknowledgements The first steps of this research were taken at the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies of King’s College London. Malyn Newitt gave me a warm welcome to the department. I am also grateful for the guidance through African literatures in the Portuguese language from the late Patrick Chabal, and for AbdoolKarim Vakil’s teachings on Portuguese nationalism. Patricia Silva McNeill and Ester Scarpa were dear friends in that period. The transfer of my PhD to Utrecht University was motivated by Paulo de Medeiros’ protagonism in the postcolonial field in the Portuguese language and beyond, and his politicised perspective on the Humanities. I am thankful for his openness and kindness, and I am deeply grateful for his continued commitment to my research after the closure of Portuguese Studies in Utrecht University. I thank Emanuelle Santos for companionship and inspiration, and Daniel Mandur Thomaz for the engaged conversations. I am indebted to the generosity of the following intellectual interlocutors: Paula Esteves dos Santos Jordão, Aafke Hulk, Gloria Wekker, Mireille Rosello and Olivier Kramsch in the Netherlands. My dialogue with peers outside Dutch borders has also been a continuous source of richness. I would like to thank, in Portugal: Ana Margarida Fonseca, Livia Apa, Ana Mafalda Leite and Margarida Paredes; in Brazil: Bela Feldman-Bianco, Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, Rita Chaves and Mário César Lugarinho; in the USA: Christopher Larkosh; and in Germany: Sabine Broeck. I am grateful to Manuela Ribeiro Sanches, who wholeheartedly received me in the Centre for Comparative Studies of the University of Lisbon, and in particular in her research group Dislocating Europe: Postcolonial Perspectives in Anthropology, Art, Literature and History. She has been an example of scholar throughout. Ana Salgueiro and Caterina Lugliè were kind friends during my stay in Lisbon. I also wish to thank: The institutions that provided me funding to attend international conferences, to carry out research in the Netherlands and study abroad: the Association of British and Irish Lusitanists, the Stichting Fonds Dr. Catharine van Tussenbroek, the Stichting Jo Kolk Studiefonds, the