Brazilian Cultural Theory

Fall 2018

Wednesdays: 1:00-4:00

“Cartão Postal” (1928), Tarsila do Amaral

Professor: Lorraine Leu Email: [email protected]

Office hours: BY APPOINTMENT - Weds 9:30 – 12:30, BEN 4.146

Description:

This course will explore how discussions surrounding certain ideas or cultural movements have resonated through the work of different scholars, and impacted the conceptualization of Brazilian society and culture. These include: “misplaced ideas”; ufanismo; Modernism; racial democracy; Concretism; 1960s counterculture; postcoloniality em português; theories of race; and black feminist thought.

This seminar has three goals: • introduce some of the most influential topics and theories that have informed contemporary scholarship on the relationship between Brazilian society and its literary and cultural production; • introduce research approaches and sources; • help students develop analytical thinking and writing skills. These goals will be met through a combination of reading, discussion, presentations, and research exercises.

The course will equip you with some of the theoretical tools and analytical skills necessary for developing an original research idea that dialogues with theories discussed in the seminar.

Requirements and grading:

Your grade will be based on: • active participation in our class discussions (20%) • a proposal for an original research project of around 8 - 10 pages double spaced (+ Bibliography); OR a 15 minute conference paper developed from your research; OR a draft of an article for submission to a peer-reviewed journal (around 6,000 words) (60%) • presentation of key ideas of proposal, conference paper, or article draft in final class (20%)

Classes and student participation will be in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. You must be able to read academic Portuguese.

Disabilities:

UT-Austin provides, upon request, appropriate accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities at http://diversity.utexas.edu/disability/ Course Schedule

Week 1 (Aug 29): Introduction to the course.

Week 2 (Sep 5):

Misplaced ideas: Slavery, seigneurialism, and suffering

• Assis, Machado de. “O Espelho” and “Pai Contra Mãe.” In the public domain online in Portuguese; English translations on Canvas. • Schwarz, Roberto. “Misplaced Ideas,” in Misplaced Ideas. London/New York: Verso, 1992, 19-32. • Chalhoub, Sidney. “The Precariousness of Freedom in a Slave Society (Brazil in the Nineteenth Century.” International Review of Social History 56, no. 3 (2011): 405-439. OR its Portuguese (shorter) version Chalhoub, Sidney. "Precariedade estrutural: o problema da liberdade no Brasil escravista (século XIX)." História Social 19 (2010): 33-62. • Farias, Juliana, Flávio Gomes et al. “Controle social, criminalidade e sistema prisional” in 2006. Cidades Negras. São Paulo: Alameda, 2006, 61-75. • Kittelson, Roger. Chapter 3 of The Practice of Politics in Post-Colonial Brazil: Porto Alegre, 1845-1895. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. • Saidiya Hartman. “Innocent Amusements”, Chapter 1 of Scenes of Subjection. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Week 3 (Sep 12)

“Porque me ufano do meu paiz”: National zealotry and myth-making

• Barreto, Lima. Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma. São Paulo: Editora Moderna, 1988. • Celso, Affonso. Porque me ufano do meu paiz. Rio de Janeiro: Garnier, 1901. • Carvalho, José Murilo de. "Dreams come untrue." Daedalus 129, no. 2 (2000): 57-82. • Sevcenko, Nicolau. Chapters 1 and 5 of Literatura como missão : tensões sociais e criação cultural na Primeira República. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003. • Santiago, Silviano. “Uma ferroada no peito do pé”, in Vale quanto pesa: Ensaios sobre questões político-culturais. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1982, 163-182.

* In class we will listen to the song “Tropicália” (1968) by Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso

Week 4 (Sep 19)

Theorizing the nation: Modernity and Modernism I

• Andrade, Oswald de. “Manifesto Antropófago,” in Obras Completas de Oswald de Andrade. (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1978), 27-34. • Schwarz, Roberto. “A carroça, o bonde e o poeta modernista,” in Que Horas São. (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1987), 11-28. Trans. into English as “The Cart, the Tram and the Modernist Poet,” in Misplaced Ideas. (London/New York: Verso, 1992), 108-125. • Resende, Beatriz. “Modernism: The Canonised Revolution,” in Through the Kaleidoscope: The Experience of Modernity in Latin America. (London/New York: Verso, 2000), 199-218. • Martins, José de Souza. “The Hesitations of the Modern and the Contradictions of Modernity in Brazil,” in Through the Kaleidoscope: The Experience of Modernity in Latin America. (London/New York: Verso, 2000), 248-274. • Moriconi, Italo. “The Postmodern Debate: Brazilian Force Fields – An Introductory Overview (Working Paper),” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 14.3 (2005): 355-370.

* In class we will listen to the song “Jóia” (1974) by Caetano Veloso.

Week 5 (Sep 26)

Theorizing the nation: Modernity and Modernism II

• Andrade, Mário de. Macunaíma. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, Literatura Brasileira, 2013. • Andrade, Joaquim Pedro de. Macunaíma. 1969. • Souza, Gilda de Mello e. “O tupi e o alaúde,” in Mário de Andrade: Macunaíma, o herói sem nenhum caráter, ed. Telê Porto Ancona Lopez. Rio de Janeiro: ALLCA XX, 1996, 255-294. • Antelo, Raúl. “Macunaíma: apropriação e originalidade,” in Mário de Andrade: Macunaíma, o herói sem nenhum caráter, ed. Telê Porto Ancona Lopez. Rio de Janeiro: ALLCA XX, 1996, 295-305.

Week 6 (Oct 3)

Imagining the nation: Racial democracy

• Freyre, Gilberto. Chapter 4, “O escravo negro na vida sexual e da família do brasileiro,” in Casa Grande e Senzala. (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 28ª Edição, 1933/1992), 283-379. Trans. “The Negro Slave in the Sexual and Family Life of the Brazilian,” in The Masters and the Slaves. (New York: Knopf, 1933/1946), 278-403. • Cleary, David. “Race, Nationalism and Social Theory in Brazil. Rethinking Gilberto Freyre,” Seminar Paper, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University. • Needell, Jeffrey, “Identity, Race, Gender and Modernity in the Origins of Gilberto Freyre’s Oeuvre,” American Historical Review Vol. 100 (1995): 51-77. • Young, Robert C. “O Atlântico lusotropical: Gilberto Freyre e a transformação do hibridismo,” in Gilberto Freyre e os estudos latino-americanos, ed. Joshua Lund and Malcolm McNee. (Pittsburg, PA: Univ. of Pittsburg, 2006), 99-122.

Week 7 (Oct 10)

Late Modernism and Concretism: “The Architects of Construction”

• Holston, James. Ch 3 of The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). • Andrade, Joaquim Pedro de. Brasília: Contradições de uma cidade nova. 1967, 23 mins. We will watch together in class. • Treece, David. Ch 7 of The Gathering of Voices: The Twentieth Century Poetry of Latin America. (London: Verso: 1992) • Melo Neto, João Cabral de. A educação pela pedra. Rio de Janeiro: Editora do Autor, 1966. • Read, Justin. "Alternative Functions: Joao Cabral de Melo Neto and the Architectonics of Modernity." Luso-Brazilian Review 43, no. 1 (2006): 65-93.

Week 8 (October 17)

Culture and politics in an era of revolution • Estevam, Carlos. “For a Popular Revolutionary Art”, CPC (Centro Popular de Cultura) manifesto, in Brazilian Cinema, ed. Randal Johnson and Robert Stam. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 59-63. • Rocha, Glauber. “A estética da fome” manifesto, trans. “An Esthetic of Hunger,” in Brazilian Cinema, ed. Randal Johnson and Robert Stam. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 69-71. • Schwarz, Roberto. “Culture and politics in Brazil, 1964-69,” in Misplaced Ideas. (London/New York: Verso, 1992), 126-159. • Freire, Paulo. Chapter 1, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), 27-56. • Kirkendall, Andrew J. “Entering History: Paulo Freire and the Politics of the Brazilian Northeast, 1958-1964,” Luso-Brazilian Review 41.1 (2004): 168-189.

* In class we will watch a clip of Deus e o diabo na terra do sol (1962), Glauber Rocha, and listen to the live recording of Caetano Veloso’s “É proibido proibir” (1968).

Special Session:

Developing a research proposal: Creating a problem statement • Przeworski, Adam and Frank Solomon, “On the Art of Writing Proposals,” Social Science Research Council, 1988. Writing a conference paper: Creating an abstract • https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2010/11/03/art-conference-paper

Dos and don’ts of journal publishing • See my handout on Canvas

Week 9 (October 24)

Postcoloniality em português I

• Schwarz, Roberto. “Nacional por subtração,” in Que horas são? (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1987), 29-48. • Rosa, João Guimarães. “A terceira margem do rio”, in Primeiras Estórias. (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1988), 32-37. • Santiago, Silviano. “O entre-lugar do discurso latinoamericano,” in Uma literatura nos trópicos. (São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1978), 11-28. • Lopes, Denilson. “From the Space In-Between to the Transcultural”, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 16.3 (2007): 359-369. • Sevcenko, Nicolau. (1992) “In Search of the Third Bank of the River: Reflections of the Burden of the Past in Contemporary Brazilian Culture”, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 1.1 (1992): 69-86.

* In class we will listen to “A terceira margem rio” (1991), by Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso.

Week 10 (October 31)

Postcoloniality em português II

• Cesarino, Letícia Maria Costa da Nóbrega. “Brazilian postcoloniality and South South cooperation: a view from Anthropology”, Portuguese Cultural Studies, 4 (2012): 85-113. • Costa, Claudia de Lima. “Feminismo e tradução cultural: sobre a colonialidade do gênero e a descolonização do saber”, Portuguese Cultural Studies, 4 (2012): 41- 65. • Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam. “‘Brazil is not traveling enough’: on postcolonial theory and analogous counter-currents,” Interview by Emanuelle Santos and Patricia Schor, Portuguese Cultural Studies, 4 (2012): 13-40. • Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. "Between Prospero and Caliban: Colonialism, postcolonialism and interidentity", Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 29.2 (2006): 143-166. • Mignolo, Walter. “Epistemic Disobedience and the Decolonial Option: A Manifesto.” Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(2), 2011.

Week 11 (Nov 7)

Racial dynamics in Brazil:

• Nascimento, Abdias. “Genocide: The Social Lynching of Africans and their Descendants in Brazil,” in Brazil Mixture or Massacre: Essays in the Genocide of a Black People. (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1989), 57-94. • Sheriff, Robin. “Talk: Discourses on Color and Race,” in Dreaming Equality: Color, Race and Racism in Urban Brazil. (New Brunswick/New Jersey/ London: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 29-58. • Costa Vargas, J. H. (2004). Hyperconsciousness of race and its negation: The dialectic of white supremacy in Brazil. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 11(4), 443-470. • Ferreira da Silva, D. (2009). No-bodies: Law, raciality and violence. Griffith Law Review, 18(2), 212-236. • Alves, Jaime Amparo. (2014). On Mules and Bodies: Black Captivities in the Brazilian Racial Democracy. Critical Sociology, 42 (2), 229-248.

Week 12 (Nov 14)

“Por um feminismo Afro-latino-americano”: Black women’s feminist thought

• Gonzalez, Lélia. “A mulher negra na socidedade brasileira”, in Luz, M. T. (1982). O lugar da mulher. Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 87-106. • Gonzalez, Lélia. “Por um feminism Afro-latino-americano”, accessed via https://edisciplinas.usp.br/mod/resource/view.php?id=174405 • Carneiro, Sueli. “Enegrecer o feminismo: a situação da mulher negra na América Latina a partir de uma perspectiva de gênero,” in Racismos Contemporâneos, eds. Ashoka Empreendedores Sociais, Takano Cidadania/Grupo Takano. (Rio de Janeiro: Takano Ed., 2003), 49-58. • Cardoso, Cláudia Pons. "Feminisms from the Perspective of Afro-Brazilian Women." Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 14, no. 1 (2016): 1-29. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed August 24, 2018). • Bento, Maria Aparecida Silva. “A cor do silêncio,” in Racismos Contemporâneos. Rio de Janeiro: Takano, 2003. • Alves, Miriam. “A literatura feminina negra no Brasil – pensando a existência.” Revista da ABPN, vol. 1, no. 3, 2011, pp.181-90. • Evaristo, Conceição. Ponciá Vicêncio. (A copy in Portuguese and a copy in English on reserve in the PCL. There are also used copies in English available to purchase on Amazon.)

* In class we will watch a clip of Kbela (2015), Yasmin Thayná.

Week 13 (Nov 21) NO CLASS THIS WEEK FOR THANKSGIVING

Week 14 (Nov 28)

Proposal/ conference/ article draft workshop

For this session each person will go over the key ideas and approaches for your draft for up to 10 minutes and then receive 10 minutes of feedback from the group and me. The outlines you will present consist of your Problem Statement or Abstract, plus an annotated schema or road map for how the rest of the proposal or paper will look.

Week 15 (Dec 5)

Presentations of draft research proposals, conference papers, articles

Each person will have 15 minutes to present. Written versions of draft proposals, conference papers, or articles must be submitted in paper form under my office door in Benedict by Mon 10th Dec at noon.

Appendix

Research Proposal Guidelines:

A proposal explains a research project you intend to carry out. It consists of a problem statement (i.e., primary research question(s), the context and significance of the research (i.e., where it fits in a particular field and why what you propose to do is important), a brief literature review, discussion of the methodology you will use, and a statement of the results you expect.

To write a proposal, you must think around the topic that interests you, and formulate a researchable problem or question. To get to this point, you should do some general background reading on the subject or area. Once you have formulated a research question, you must become familiar with the research already done on your topic so you can explain how your question and/or research approach differs, and what you expect your completed study to add to existing knowledge on the subject.

Purpose: In this assignment students will 1. Design a high quality, peer-reviewed proposal that can either be used for funding applications, or may eventually form the basis of the proposal submitted to your Comprehensive Exams Committee. 2. Conduct preliminary secondary source research regarding topic of choice. 3. Evaluate the methods, biases, and limitations of intended research.

Format: 1. Initial problem statement: 2 paragraph maximum a. Concise statement of the central question to be addressed b. Context of study c. Location within field/ existing scholarship with concise, focused literature review d. Relevance/significance/impact of research e. Theoretical/disciplinary approach f. Consideration of methods g. Expected outcomes, timeline for research

2. Bibliography: 20 sources (does not need to be annotated), consistent style

3. Research Proposal

Follows steps a. to g. above in more extended form

4. Proposal presentation: 15 minutes

5. Peer feedback and evaluation

Guidelines for Presenting at Conferences:

1. Think back to conferences you have attended and recall good and bad papers. Reflect on what worked and what didn’t.

2. A conference presentation is a performance: - Sound enthusiastic! - Be well presented. - Practice: • Reading it through aloud several times will identify any problematic areas, eg difficult words, awkward phrasing. Practice pausing for effect, or stressing certain words. • Don’t flail around in the air with your hands - distracting • It’s also important to ensure that you’re within the time limits. Overrunning will not win you any friends (especially if you’re speaking just before lunch). • Don’t forget to make eye contact.

3. This is not a journal article – the objective is to communicate your idea or argument clearly and succintly.

4. Focus on one argument or idea.

5. Get to the point. State your thesis early, decisively and clearly! A sexy start: you have to get the audience’s attention.

6. Use your own words. Emphasize your own ideas, not the work of others. Quote or paraphrase authorities sparingly, if you must.

7. Signpost the content down for the audience. Such as "I will make this argument in three parts (1, 2, 3). Usually the most welcome is "To conclude...."

8. Slides should be composed of pictures, not words

Conference abstracts:

a. Concise statement of the central question to be addressed b. Context of study c. How you are dialoguing with existing scholarship d. Relevance/significance/impact of research e. Theoretical/disciplinary approach f. Methods g. Argument and analysis h. Conclude by reinforcing key point