Literary Visual and Cultural Studies
Literatura colonial de autoria feminina: O Último Batuque, de Maria do Céu Coelho
Abstract:
Portuguese colonial literature written by women has received little attention in Lusophone literary and cultural studies. The most relevant exception, in this regard, is the case of Maria Archer, author of a significant number of fiction and non-fiction texts of colonial setting and theme that have received diverse readings and analyses. In particular, Ferreira’s works on women’s authorship writing and the connections between gender, nation and empire were pioneers in approaching this production according to an integrated theoretical framework, capable of illuminating material and symbolic transits and identity reverberations between nation and empire, in line with the paradigms of colonial and feminist historiography of the 1990s. Literatura colonial de autoria feminina: O Último Batuque, de Maria do Céu Coelho, aims to deepen and broaden the knowledge of Portuguese women’s writing on colonial themes, by providing a reading of the book O último batuque (1963) by Maria do Céu Coelho, published in Mozambique in the early 1960s. It is a singular work, for focusing on the eminently masculine topic of hunting from a woman’s perspective, and also for being a hybrid book that combines memorialistic writing and short novellas about the rural universe of colonial Mozambique. The paper discusses some of the essential characteristics of Portuguese colonial literature, as it has been conceptualized by several authors in previous studies. Resorting also to the vast literature on the articulations between gender, empire, and colonialism, the article seeks to equate the author’s position in the corpus of colonial literature, as well as to reflect on how her literary writing articulates race and gender.
Quotation:
Falconi, Jessica (2021) “Literatura colonial de autoria feminina: O Último Batuque, de Maria do Céu Coelho,” Portuguese Cultural Studies: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 4.
East Timorese Literary Narratives (Twenty-First Century): Indian Ocean Crossings and Littoral Encounters
Abstract:
The aim of East Timorese Literary Narratives (Twenty-First Century): Indian Ocean Crossings and Littoral Encounters is to analyze the book Requiem para o Navegador Solitário (2007) [Requiem for the Lonely Sailor] by Luís Cardoso considering the maritime elements that emerge in the novel and combining Indian Ocean Studies with Gender Studies. Pointing to the Timorese imaginary and the female protagonist’s perspective, we will focus on the elements related to the island’s coast, such as the shore, the sea, ships, sailors, and the interconnection with other islands and territories during the colonial period. In fact, we believe that these elements integrate not only the geographical space of the narrative, but also the literary imaginary, as is the case, for example, of the metaphorical resources and the construction of the main character, Catarina. Considering that East Timor is located at the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean and taking into account the theoretical theory of Indian Ocean Studics, we intend to demonstrate that in this novel the ocean constitutes a visual and metaphorical transcontinental repertoire that relates to the Timorese cultural imaginary itself. We will analyze the connection between the existential trajectory of Catarina, the novel’s female protagonist, the history of East Timor and the Indian Ocean crossings. This text, written in Portuguese by a Timorese author, portrays the complex history of this territory during World War II and offers a unique perspective on Timorese history.
Quotation:
Spinuzza, G. (2021). East Timorese Literary Narratives (Twenty-First Century): Indian Ocean Crossings and Littoral Encounters. Portuguese Studies 37(2), 242-255. doi:10.1353/port.2021.0017.
Digital music and the “death of the long tail”
Abstract:
The new technology of digital distribution is changing the pop-rock music market. In the middle of the last decade Chris Anderson (Anderson, 2006) stated that the death of the CD and the dematerialization of music had created a long tail of marginal non-hits. The aggregate demand for these non-hits gave birth to important and valorized niches of pop-rock songs and memorabilia. This phenomenon has promoted the democratization of the access to cultural goods. But, growing evidence exists on the persistence of the so-called superstar effect. The impact of live music has renewed the relevance of highly extravagant outcomes for the privileged group of really great stars. The “winner takes all” effect dominates the music market, and streaming as a form of digital distribution fuels this effect. This new technology is posing several new issues to the development of the market and cultural policy. Our fundamental research questions then are: Is there empirical evidence of the long tail or superstar effect in the pop-rock music market? How did enterprises adapt their business strategies to this online technological revolution? Therefore, in Digital music and the “death of the long tail”, we examine different sources of data on the pop-rock market, such as the revenues from digital music sales and live music performances, to confirm the importance of the “winner takes all” effect and the persistence of important niches in alternative pop-rock music.
Quotation:
“Coelho, M., Mendes, Z. (2019). “Digital music and the “death of the long tail”. Journal of Business Research, 101, 454-460. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.01.015“
Declinações: Identidades de Género e Construção da Nação em Filmes de Licínio Azevedo
Abstract:
Declinações: Identidades de Género e Construção da Nação em Filmes de Licínio Azevedo addresses the representation of gender differences in nation building in Mozambique in two fiction films by Brazilian-Mozambican filmmaker Licínio Azevedo, namely: Virgem Margarida (2012) and Comboio de Sal e Açúcar (2017). Focusing on different moments in the history of Mozambique, the films address little explored aspects of the crises and the historical, political, social and cultural changes experienced by the new independent country. Virgem Margarida focuses, in particular, on the experience of the re-education camps lived by women, while in Comboio de Sal and Açúcar the male characters of the Frelimo army involved in the civil war stand out. The two films bet on a representation of the genders – understood as social and cultural constructions – able to account for their differences, thus shattering, on the one hand, the monolithic image of women, and on the other, the Mozambican national identity itself. The films represent several possible “decliNations”, understood here in accordance with the multiple meanings of the word: refusals, deviations, or even “flexions of gender, number”, etc., of the Nation.
Quotation:
Falconi, J. (2019). Declinações: Identidades de Género e Construção da Nação em Filmes de Licínio Azevedo. Perspectiva Histórica 13: 81-105. http://www.perspectivahistorica.com.br/revistas/1563933990.pdf“
A poesia de Glória de Sant’anna: um roteiro de leitura dos primeiros livros
Abstract:
Through in-depth analysis of thematic aspects of the work of Glória de Sant’Anna, a poet of Portuguese origin who lived for over two decades in Mozambique, we will analyze in A poesia de Glória de Sant’Anna: um roteiro de leitura dos primeiros livros the poetic imaginary based on natural elements, especially aquatic, which are resumed by the generation of post-independence poets. Through the articulation of thematic elements identifiable with water, we intend to contribute to the definition of a thematic core built around the imaginary of the Indian Ocean, which has been asserting itself since the colonial period and which constitutes one of the key thematic cores for understanding Mozambican poetry. In this essay, we intend to demonstrate that in the most intimate texts, the poet metaphorically reworks the oceanic imaginary, turning it into a universal space of identification between the lyric self and the vastness of the Indian Ocean horizon. This work is financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the NILUS-Narratives of the Indian Ocean in the Lusophone Space Project (PTDC/CPC-ELT/4868/2014). This text reworks an essay that will be published in a collection of texts in tribute to Glória de Sant’Anna (in press) and is the result of the research of the PhD thesis defended in 2017.
Quotation:
“Spinuzza, Giulia. A poesia de Glória de Sant’Anna: um roteiro de leitura dos primeiros livros. Mulemba, UFRJ, Brasil, vol. 11, n. 21, Dezembro 2019, p. 136 https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/mulemba/issue/view/1302/showToc”
Entre silêncios e interferências: mulheres na imprensa colonial
Abstract:
In Entre silêncios e interferências: mulheres na imprensa periódica colonial we adress the presence of women in the colonial periodical press of the former Portuguese Empire means trying to define, even if only provisionally, the main aspects of the “object” of reflection proposed in the present dossier. Firstly, by proposing a joint approach, under the term “colonial”, of the periodical press published both in the former metropolis and in the various spaces colonised by Portugal, we point to some perspectives of the historiography on European colonialisms which have been shattering polarized visions, analysing the social and political reverberations between metropolis and colonies, the transits of ideas and imaginaries, as well as the “manufactured” dimension of the difference (Burton 1994; Cooper and Stoler 1997). The dossier results from the panel “The ‘women’ and the colonial periodical press” organized in the framework of the International Congress Politics and Culture in the Colonial Periodical Press, which took place from 22 to 25 May 2017, near the CHAM-Centre of Humanities of the New University of Lisbon, in partnership with the CEI-IUL-Centre of International Studies of ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and the CEC-Centre of Comparative Studies of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. The Congress was an initiative of the International Study Group of the Colonial Periodical Press of the Portuguese Empire, created by Sandra Ataíde Lobo (CHAM-UNL), Adelaide Vieira Machado (CHAM-UNL) and Cátia Miriam Costa (CEI-IUL). Various entities and researchers from different research centres have joined the Group.
Quotation:
“Falconi, J.; Wieser, D. (2019). Entre silêncios e interferências: mulheres na imprensa periódica colonial, Revista ex aequo- Revista da Associação Portuguesa de Estudos sobre as Mulheres, n. 39. https://doi.org/10.22355/. exaequo.2019.39.01.10.22355/”
Voices, Languages, Discourses: Interpreting the present and the memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe
Abstract:
Voices, Languages, Discourses: Interpreting the Present and the Memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe brings together a selection of interviews with writers and filmmakers from Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe in order to examine representations and images of national identity in these countries’ postcolonial narratives. It continues and completes the exploration of the postcolonial imaginary and identity of Portuguese-speaking Africa presented in the previous interview volume Speaking the Postcolonial Nation: Interviews with Writers from Angola and Mozambique (2014). Memory, history, migration and diaspora are central notions in the recreation and reconceptualisation of the nation and its identities in Cape Verdean, Guinean and São Tomense literary and film culture. By bringing together different generations of writers and filmmakers, with a wide variety of perspectives on the historical, social and cultural changes that occurred in their countries, this book makes a valuable contribution to current debates on post-colonialism, nation and identity in these former Portuguese colonies.
Quotation:
Leite, A., M., Falconi, J., Krakowska, K., Kahn, S., Secco, C. (2020). Voices, Languages, Discourses: Interpreting the Present and the Memory of Nation in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe. Oxford, United Kingdom: Peter Lang Verlag. Retrieved Oct 6, 2022, from https://www.peterlang.com/document/1055586
Estudos sobre o Oceano Índico: antologia de textos teóricos
Estudos sobre o Oceano Índico: Antologia de Textos Teóricos is a book that gathers eleven theoretical texts by some of the most important thinkers on Indian Ocean Studies (IOS). This set of texts translated into an anthology, among other aspects, intends to give an account of the disciplinary polyphony that counter-punctuates the history of the Indian Ocean, while reflecting on the solidary cultural networks that are woven in the liquid and insular spaces, ports and port cities that climb the Indian Ocean rim from the African continent to India, based on the assumption that the Indian Ocean configures an identity and cultural geography of transnational nature.
Abstract:
Estudos sobre o Oceano Índico: Antologia de Textos Teóricos is a book that gathers eleven theoretical texts by some of the most important thinkers on Indian Ocean Studies (IOS).
In the framework of the Project NILUS – Narratives of the Indian Ocean in the Lusophone Space (https://cesa.rc.iseg.ulisboa.pt/nilus/), the research group started to map the main lines of disciplinary reflection in this area through a survey of theoretical texts written in English and French, by historians, writers and scholars of the human and social sciences, from South Africa, Mauritius, Reunion Island, Madagascar and India.
This set of texts translated into an anthology, among other aspects, intends to give an account of the disciplinary polyphony that counterpointingly animates the history of the Indian Ocean, while reflecting on the solidary cultural networks that are woven in the liquid and insular spaces, in the ports and port cities that climb the Indian Ocean rim from the African continent to India, based on the assumption that the Indian Ocean configures an identity and cultural geography of a transnational nature. In addition, there is also the need to re-signify and re-articulate this field of studies in Portuguese-speaking contexts through a critical and methodological dimension not necessarily related to the imperial narrative, especially now that the very notion of discoveries and discoveries is under a deep – and necessary – conceptual, historiographical and political scrutiny prompted by the project of creating a Museum of Discoveries.
In the texts translated here, the various types of religiosities and peoples, travellers and workers are also represented and historised, with their experience of migration and displacement, reconfigured in a similar material culture, in which gastronomy, cloths and maritime practices are given a prominent role. The topics of the sea, such as boats, monsoons, fishing and networked narratives about travel imaginaries and myths, are also other aspects that fall within diversified disciplinary articulations such as ecology and ecocriticism. In fact, the presence of the non-human – in its multiple material, geological, organic, non-organic declinations, etc. – in the texts gathered here, points to the growing interrogation, already raised by Isabel Hofmeyr, about the theoretical emergence of ‘oceanic ontologies’ through which to rethink the oceans – and the Indian Ocean in particular – not only as backdrops and contexts, but also as actors/subjects/producers of narratives.
Quotation:
Leite, Ana Mafalda, Elena Brugioni e Jessica Falconi, org. (2020). Estudos sobre o Oceano Índico : antologia de textos teóricos – excertos. Lisboa: CEsA/ISEG. URL: https://www.repository.utl.pt/handle/10400.5/19965
