Afro-Brazil: Ideas of Africa in Brazilian Fiction (MLP3002)

15 credits

Is Brazil a “racial democracy”? What explains many Brazilians’ assertion of their blackness and Africanness regardless of their skin colour? Which myths about Africa have “travelled” to Brazil? How do these myths affect the literary production and reception of Afro-Brazilian writers? How have male and female, white and non-white Brazilian writers defined the relationship between race, gender and nation since the abolition of slavery until the present? This module is suitable for non-specialist students interested in learning about the symbolic importance of Africa and blackness to literary constructions of Brazilian history and culture. Literature is studied in English translation.