Brazilian Culture: Conquest to Contemporary
Faculty Leader: Tatiana Flores (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Art History
Travel Dates: January 11-18, 2020
Class Meeting Times: Tuesday, 9:50AM - 12:50PM, Academic Building Room 3450, College Avenue Campus
Program Costs: TBA
Course Number: 01:090:293:H3, 3 credits and Study Abroad 1-credit (Honors Students will receive a total of 4 credits).
As part of the fall 2019 Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar "Brazilian Culture: Conquest to Contemporary", Professor Tatiana Flores will be leading students on a week-long trip to Brazil. In conjunction with the field experience, students will enroll in a one-credit course.
The course explores key tropes that have informed the formation of a particularly Brazilian identity through the lenses of nature and culture. Though these might seem to be contradictory categories, they nevertheless constitute ways for thinking about Brazil’s unique character. Beginning with texts and images related to the conquest, the course takes a panoramic tour of Brazil, through its cultural products and their relation to place. We will study indigenous cultures of the Amazon; Brazil in the European imaginary; colonial artists in the Northeast and Minas Gerais; the representation of race and class through text and image; the conceptualization of modernity in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasilia; and dichotomy of utopia and dystopia that has recurred in the country’s history. Given the professor’s expertise in art and literature in particular, there will be a strong emphasis on these areas, but architecture, urbanism, film, and music will also be addressed.
* There are 15 available spaces.
