UF Center for Latin American Studies
Days: Wednesdays
Times: 11:45 am - 2:45 pm
Location: Matherly 0105
Course description
This course examines the history of Brazil from the mid-19th century to the present through novels, memoirs, short stories, and films. We will consider literature and film as historical sources, through which we can gain insights not only about shifting trends in art and aesthetics, but also about historical events and cultural dynamics. We will critically examine themes such as race, gender, class, queerness, nation, loss, violence, and memory through the work of some of Brazil’s greatest artistic luminaries, placing their oeuvres in conversation with relevant historiography and literary criticism. Though we will devote considerable time to thinking about the particular authors of our texts and directors of our films, we will work to situate them with their broader artistic and historical context. While some of the assigned novels and films are considered canonical, others will challenge the notion of a Brazilian canon altogether. We will ask: in what ways do these cultural products reflect the Brazil in which they were created? What political, social, and aesthetic forces, both in Brazil and from abroad, influenced Brazilian cultural production in the 19th and 20th centuries? What are some of the unique properties of literature and film as historical sources? And finally, what is the nature of the relationship between art and politics?
Meg Weeks
Assistant Professor
Center for Latin American Studies
378 Grinter Hall
352-273-4708
weeksm@ufl.edu
