Portuguese 381 - Seminar in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies: Brasil Profundo: Landscape and the Environmental Imaginary in Brazilian Culture

Topics course: This course addresses diverse modes of representing nature and the environment in Brazil, from the pre-colonial period to the present. Drawing upon visual arts, film, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, we will consider mytho-poetic accounts of the creation of the land, colonial accounts of flora, fauna and plantation agriculture, 19th-century scientific expeditions, Romantic and Modernist associations of nature and national identity, rural social movements and ideas of rural authenticity, and global orientations of contemporary “earth art” and “eco-poetry.” Deepening our understanding of the diversity of Brazilian landscapes and ecologies and historical forces that have shaped them, we will consider ways in which gender, class, ethnicity and ideology are implicated in different paradigms of environmental representation. Course conducted in Portuguese. Enrollment limited to 14.

Instructor Permission Req. Not open to first-years, sophomores