• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Afro-Brazil: Transatlantic Identities in Culture

Module description

In this module, you will study the broad historical and cultural links that connect Brazil and Africa in Portuguese-speaking literature, films, and arts (1822 onwards). This module is suitable for non-specialist students interested in learning about the symbolic importance of Africa and blackness to cultural constructions of Brazilian history and culture. Prior experience in Portuguese studies is not necessary. Literature is studied in English translation, although students of Portuguese will need to engage with the source texts. The module focuses on the cultural representation of Brazilian history from the standpoint of race and how short stories, novels, and cinema have engaged with histories of colonialism and slavery.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to explore questions of ethnic and racial representation of themes involving Afro-Atlantic histories in Brazil. As well as studying individual texts and films in depth, we will investigate the broad historical and cultural links that connect Brazil and Africa. The module aims to provide an informed account of the rich legacy of African cultures in Brazil in light of major cultural movements, political events and theoretical approaches to racial thinking in Brazil.  You will discuss, for example, how male and female, white and non-white writers, intellectuals and filmmakers have dealt with the concepts of “origins” and “ancestrality,” “authenticity” and “exoticism,” “lusotropicalism” and “utopia,” in their dealings with race and ethnicity, and how their colour-blindness or ethnic particularism has influenced their reception as either “canonical” or “marginal” writers.  You will engage with theorised analysis of racialised representations in literature, films and visual arts and perform close readings of sequences in films.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Discuss key aspects of ethnic and racial representation of themes involving Afro-Atlantic histories in Portuguese-speaking culture.
• 2. Demonstrate a gender and race-informed understanding of how empire, colonial violence, slavery and the myth of “racial democracy” are represented in literature, cinema and visual arts.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Mount a detailed argument in the appropriate register of English, using quotations from both the primary text and secondary critical sources
• 4. With some guidance, evaluate and apply a range of critical approaches to the material covered

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Work effectively to sustain written and oral arguments coherently
• 6. Think critically and independently

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Introduction. History of Brazil
• Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves
• Machado de Assis (selection of short-stories)
• Maria Firminia, Úrsula (novel)
• Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark (testimonial novel)
• José Eduardo Agualusa, Creole (novel)
• Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, City of God (film)
• Karim Aïnouz, Madame Satã(film)
• Revision

Group oral presentations in twos or threes will be held during seminars. These will be based on the topics covered in the lectures and followed by a discussion in which all students will be expected to participate.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Agualusa, Jose Eduardo. 1997. Creole. Translated by Daniel Hahn. Arcadia Books.
• Reis, Firminia Maria do. 2021. Ursula. Translated by Cristina Ferreira Pinto-Bailey. University of Massachusetts Press.
• Freyre, Gilberto. 1938. The Masters and the Slaves: a Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilisation. Translated by Samuel Putnam. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Jackson, K. David (ed). 2006. Oxford Anthology of the Brazilian Short-Story. Oxford: New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jesus, Carolina Maria de. 1962. Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus. Translated by David St. Clair. New York: New American Library.

Note: Although all texts will be provided in translation, students with knowledge of Portuguese will be encouraged to read primary texts in the original Portuguese as appropriate.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – Link to ELE page to be provided by Faculty
• Schor, Patricia and Emanuelle Santos (eds). 2012. Brazilian Postcolonialities. Portuguese Cultural Studies, n. 4. http://www2.let.uu.nl/solis/psc/p/PVOLUMEFOUR/PVOLUMEFOURPAPERS/P4COMPLETE.pdf

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Afolabi, Niyi. 2009. Afro-Brazilians: Cultural Production in a Racial Democracy. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.
• Almeida, Miguel Vale de. 2004. An Earth-Colored Sea: “Race”, Culture and the Politics of Identity in the Portuguese-Speaking World. New York: Berghahn Books.
• Butler, Kim D. 1998. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abilition São Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
• Crook, Larry and Randal Johnson (eds). 2000. Black Brazil: Culture, Identity and Social Mobilization. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
• Dávila, Jerry. 2010. Hotel Trópico: Brazil and the Challenge of African Decolonisation, 1950-1980. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press.
• Fanon, Frantz. 2006. 'The man of colour and the white woman'. The Fanon Reader. Edited by Azzedine Haddour. London: Pluto Press. 46-58
• Ferreira. Ana Paula. 2012. 'Caliban's Travels'. The Lusotropical Tempest: Postcolonial Debates in Portuguese. Ed. Sheila Khan, Ana Margarida Dias Martins, Hilary Owen and Carmen Villar. Lusophone Studies Series 7. Bristol University Press, Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies. 29-42.
• Hall, Stuart. 1996. “When was the Post-Colonial? Thinking at the Limit’. The Postcolonial Question. Edited by Ian Chambers and Lidia Curti. London and New York: Routledge. 242-59.
• Hanchard, Michael George. 1998. Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Sansone, Livio. 2003. Blackness without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil. New York; Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2002. ‘Between Prospero and Caliban: Colonialism, Postcolonialism and Inter-Identity’. Luso-Brazilian Review. 39:2. 9-43.
• Skidmore, Thomas. 1993. Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

Primary viewing:

• City of God [Cidade de Deus]. Dir. Fernando Meirelles. 2002. Film.
• Madame Satã. Dir. Karim Aïnouz. 2002. Film.

Key words search

Brazil, postcolonial theory, feminism, gender, race, ethnicity, literature, film studies, Portuguese, slavery, afro-Brazilian culture, lusotropicalism, history