HSTLAC 482
THE MANY HISTORICAL LANDSCAPES OF BRAZIL
Mural by Eduardo Kobra in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (https://streetartutopia.com/2024/01/23/photo-and-video-of-mural-by-eduardo-kobra-in-belo-horizonte-brazil/)
Like the Caribbean islands, Brazil evokes images of the exotic, the hypersexual, and the overtly vivacious. Many people imagine Brazil as a land of exuberant beauty and freedom from social and sexual inhibitions. Brazil is indeed the site of magnificent land and waterscapes and immeasurable socio-cultural richness. However, the focus on the “exotic” and “fun” has led to one-dimensional and trivial understandings of the processes that have constituted the many sites and peoples living in what we today name “Brazil.” The goal of this course is to explore from various and often contrasting standpoints the multiple struggles that have and continue shaping the individuals and communities inhabiting the Brazilscapes. We also seek to investigate the varied roles of Portuguese-America/Brazil in historical global formations (through their participation in the Atlantic slave trade, plantation production, imperial expansion, nation formation and export economies, and neoliberal politics) and how these multidirectional exchanges (with Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, the U.S.) have shaped the colonial, imperial, and national projects in Brazil.
History is not a progressive, lineal narrative of events but a series of discontinuous and overlapping processes. Therefore, the course aims to offer not a “history” of Brazil but a series of snapshots to explore the various social, cultural, political, and economic configurations that took place all over the vast Brazilian territories. The course focuses on different historical moments such as the early colonization and development of the sugar economy; the conquest of the frontier and the mining of gold; the independence from Portugal and the coffee boom; the export economy and the urbanization of coastal cities; the creation of the Estado Novo and the preeminence of populist politics; the military regime; and the effects and challenges of facing a Neo-liberal economic global regime. While I use political and/or economic shifts as markers, the course seeks to uncover the intricacies of elite and popular political cultures and the competing understandings of gender, class, and race organizing social relations and shaping subject formations.
Students will be evaluated based on class participation, weekly reading reflections or discussion boards, a short research assignment, and a 7-9 page final paper.