Modern Languages
What is Brazil? Reading Brazilian Popular Culture
- Overview
- Module description
What is Brazil? Reading Brazilian Popular Culture (MLP3003)
15 credits
Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987) is the author of a book that "invented" Brazil: The Masters and the Slaves (1933). We will draw on Freyre's controversial thinking in order to address key aspects of Brazil's national identity and cultural production: Is Brazil a "racial democracy"? Were the Portuguese "better" colonisers than other European nations? What is "luso-tropicalism"? Which myths about Africa and Portugal have "travelled" to Brazil? This module is suitable for non-specialist students interested in learning about twentieth-century Brazilian national identity and cultural production (film, music, visual art and literature). All texts will be studied in translation.