Liminal Perspectives: A comparative Study of Literary Youths and Social Criticism in Brazil and Peru

• In Event: Brazil in Context: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Teaching and Study of Brazil

Abstract

My paper engages in a comparative study of Jorge Amado’s Os capitães da areia (The Captains of the Sand) and José María Arguedas’ Los ríos profundos (Deep River). My research interrogates representations of children and adolescents as found in both works and uses the central and already destabilized theme of youth as found in both works to query the use of literature as a means of social criticism in both Brazil and Peru and at the time of the works’ production. Finally, I will comment on the means in which teaching these works to adolescents has furthered this project and contributed to the ongoing dialogue regarding Brazil’s place in Latin American Studies.

Author

• Lauren G Judy Reynolds, Johns Hopkins University