DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN SYLLABUS POR 348.1— The Color of Progress: Race and Slavery in Brazilian Film and Literature (#45957) FALL 2017 BEN 1.102 (T/TH 11:00-12:30) Dr. Sônia Roncador (
[email protected]) Office hours: T/TH 2:30-4:00 (BEN 3.132) Course Description: This course proposes to demonstrate the “culture of servitude” (Ray & Qayum) that persists in the Brazilian society through a critical overview of representations of black slavery and contemporary forms of black bondage in literature, film and media. This course about the interconnections of race and social subordination is based on the premise that film and literature production has significantly contributed to the circulation of stereotypes of black servilism. One of our goals resides in demonstrating how such mainstream narratives have managed to justify the persistence of an ingrained culture of servitude in modern Brazilian society, and, conversely, to endorse specific myths of non- conflictive cross-racial relations—the most well-known of which identifies Brazil as a “racial democracy.” Additionally, the course provides a critical overview of contemporary Afro-Brazilian intellectual and cultural expressions whose aesthetic and ideological agendas challenge such juxtapositions of servilism and blackness, as well as nation and inter-racial harmony. The diverse cultural expressions comprising the course’s primary materials will be analyzed within their historical contexts, including a variety of topics such as comparative African slavery across the New World; Abolitionist movements and ideologies (past and present); slavery resistance and black activism; and nation-building discourses of racial/cultural miscegenation.