OVERVIEW

Atlantic South. Oceanic imagery, transits, stories between Portugal, Africa and Brazil.

AIMS AND CONTENT

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The aim of the course is to trace a history of Portuguese-language literatures (in addition to Portuguese and Brazilian literature, special emphasis will be placed on Cape Verdean, Angolan and Santomense literatures) through works of mainly 20th-century and contemporary scope that narrate the cultural transitions constructed by history against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean.

The course is intended for students in the Degree Course in Foreign Languages and Cultures 2nd and 3rd year

TEACHING METHODS

Lessons are held in Italian and some texts will be read in Portuguese. The lectures will be in presential mode. The course also includes a number of seminar lectures and conferences held by lecturers from other universities and the presentation of books by writers and translators.

Attendance is not monitored, but is nevertheless strongly recommended, especially for those who have never had any background in Lusophone literature.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course intends to investigate travel-related themes (diaspora, emigration, slavery, geographical discovery, landscape suggestions) and the linguistic and literary transits present in Portuguese, Brazilian and African Lusophone texts (especially fiction).

Theorists of the "Atlantic world", such as Paul Gilroy (1993) and Alberto da Costa e Silva (2014), agree in highlighting the centrality of oceanic exchanges both for the construction of a modern ethos and for understanding the persistences of the dynamics of violence, of imperial and colonial matrix, in contemporaneity. From the occupation of the Americas to the processes of effective colonisation in the African continent, bodies, cultures, knowledge, techniques and ideologies were disseminated on both shores of the Atlantic. If literature, from the travel accounts of the 16th century to the so-called colonial literatures, has witnessed the conflictual encounter with the Other, stereotyping and mythifying Africa, it proposes a radical critical revision of modern conceptions of the Other. Mapping the histories of the Atlantic therefore presents itself as an opportunity to reflect on the intersections between literature and power and on the ways of thinking the real, in literature

Course keywords: Atlantic Ocean, South, slavery, resistance, epos

The course is intended for students in the Degree Course in Foreign Languages and Cultures 2nd and 3rd year

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luciana Stegagno Picchio, Storia della letteratura brasiliana, Torino, Einaudi, 1997

Boris Fausto, Breve storia del Brasile, Cagliari, 2010

Roberto Francavilla, Inocencia Mata, Valeria Tocco, Le letterature africane di lingua portoghese, Milano, Hoepli, 2022

Simon Winchester, Atlantico, Milano, Adelphi, 2016

Paul Gilroy, The Black Athlantic. L’identità nera fra modernità e doppia coscienza, Meltemi, 2011

Roberto Francavilla, Quel che il mare non vuole. Letteratura e paesaggio in Portogallo, Milano, Mimesis, 2023

Santiago, Silviano (2000). Uma literatura nos trópicos. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco.

Silva, Alberto da Costa e (2014). Um Rio chamado Atlântico – A África no Brasil e o Brasil na África. São Paulo: Nova Fronteira.

At least two novels of your choice (one Portuguese, one Brazilian and one African) from a series of titles to be discussed in the first lectures of the course for students who are required to have 6 credits and at least three novels for students who are required to have 9 credits.

Further critical materials will be provided by the lecturer during the course of the lectures

The bibliography is indicative and should be discussed with the lecturer during the module. Non-attending students are requested to contact the lecturer to arrange a bibliography.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

ROBERTO FRANCAVILLA (President)

VIRGINIA CLARA CAPORALI

LESSONS

LESSONS START

The course is annual 

The second semester will begin on Wednesday 28 February with the following timetable

Wednesday 9-11 a.m. (POLO: Lecture Room F)

Class schedule

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE AND CULTURE II

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam will be a conversation in Italian or Portuguese and will consist of questions on the whole course (https:// servizionline.unige.it/studenti/esami).

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students with a certified DSA, disability  

or other special educational needs to contact the lecturer 

at the beginning of the course to agree on teaching and examination methods that 

while respecting the teaching objectives, take into account individual 

individual learning methods and provide suitable compensatory tools