NEW PUBLICATION

PAPER WRITTEN BY CIAC RESEARCHER IS PUBLISHED IN MAGAZINE BRASIL/BRAZIL

“Decolonizing Brazil: minor heroism in Mário de Andrade’s Macunaíma”, by CIAC researcher João Albuquerque, was recently published in the magazine BRASIL/BRAZIL (Vol.35, Nº68). The paper is focused on the modernist romance Macunaíma, written by Mário de Andrade, and reflects on colonial thinking and decolonialism.

Macunaíma is envisaged as a hero who represents a minor culture, not in the sense of being the culture of a minority of the population, but rather in the sense of being the culture of a minoritized people, subjected to a grinding power. Analyzing how parodical and satirical aspects of the narrative relate to some indigenous legends, João Albuquerque argues that Macunaíma criticized the cultural and economic (neo)colonialism to which Brazil was (yet) subjugated in the early twentieth century, while destabilizing the rational, realistic, and logical-positivist categories of colonial thought.

BRASIL/BRAZIL is a biannual magazine, published by Brown University, Associação Cultural Acervo Literário de Erico Veríssimo and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. The magazine publishes scholarly articles on Brazilian literature and Comparative Literature with a focus on Brazilian literature, as well as book reviews, interviews with writers, English language translations of Brazilian literature, and original prose and poetry by Brazilian authors.