Crossroads of Literary Imagination and Black Identities in Brazil

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

As comparative literary studies have become more transnational and translational in the last few decades, the epistemological boundaries of a Eurocentric canon have been crossed by global scholarship which developed the area into a transdisciplinary endeavor. By assuming the development of the discipline in terms of ethnicity and race, this panel proposes to explore comparatively the critical contours of the literature of persons of African descent in Brazil, and consider the implications of their cultural production for the affirmation of diverse personal identities. To this end, we examine the contemporary creative work of black people writing in different Brazilian localities. Comparative reflection on texts and contexts of Afro-Brazilians will provide common ground for the investigation into the present-day significance of various black literary imagination in a country where democracy is challenged by the persistence of racial discrimination and social inequalities.

Sub Track

• Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Session Organizer

• Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues, Fundação Técnico-Educacional Souza Marques

Chair

• Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues, Fundação Técnico-Educacional Souza Marques

Discussant

• Maria Aparecida Ferreira de Andrade Salgueiro, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Individual Presentations

• African Tradition in Black Brazilian Women’s Writings - Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues, Fundação Técnico-Educacional Souza Marques

• Afro-Brazilian Contemporary Women’s Literature: Challenges and Impact on Racial Debate in Brazil - Maria Aparecida Ferreira de Andrade Salgueiro, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

• Pretos e Pretas por Pretas e Pretos: Carlos Marighella e Marielle Franco em Estado de Poesia - Paulo Dutra, The University of New Mexico

• Formas exiladas do cânone: paradigmas literários Afro-Brasileiros - Isis Barra Costa, Ohio State University

• “In the Land of White Laws We Have to Have Brown Solutions”: Black Beauty in Esmeralda Ribeiro’s “Ogun” - Christiane Alcantara, Arizona State University