Literary Visual and Cultural Studies

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