AFRICAN DIASPORA - BRAZIL

Compiled by Monica Kirby

Bieber, Judy (1998). Postmodern ethnographer in the backlands: an imperial bureaucrat's perceptions of post-independence Brazil. Latin American Research Review, v33, n2, p37.

This essay analyzes three documents attributed to a high-ranking Portugese military officer who settled in Minas Gerais, Brazil in the early nineteenth century. One of the documents contains in its margin a poem written by the officer, which celebrates the natural beauty of Brazil. [SW]

Conference message from Salvador: Conference on World Missions and Evangelism, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, November 24 - December 3, 1996 (April, 1997). International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 21, 2, 53(2)

This paper reports on a 1996 conference held in Brazil which focused on the relationship between the gospel and culture. A wide variety of cultures were represented at the conference, and a sense of cooperation in spreading the gospel was one of the outcomes. [SW]

Gilliam, A., & Gilliam, O. (1999). Odyssey: Negotiating the subjectivity of Mulata identity in Brazil. Latin American Perspectives, v26 n3, p60-84.

Discusses the condition of mulata identity, with respect to contemporary capitalism and the intenational marketing of Brazil. The authors assert the need for a reinvention of anthropology, and for black women to share in that reinvention. [SW]

The politics of Brazil are discussed, with a focus on the racial issues that are involved. Representation of black members in the National Congress are also discussed. [SW]

Jones, Donna Valerie (1998). The ambiguous promise of European decline: A comparative study of "the end of history" in literature of the Americas and Europe (Alejo Carpenter, Cuba; Aime Cesaire, Martinique; Oswald Spengler, Germany). Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 60/03-A, p. 733.

Some European intellectuals believed that the rise of modern industrial society would mark "the end of history." This dissertation explores the reaction of Caribbean writers to this European notion, and describes the desire of Caribbean authors to construct national cultures distinct from their European counterparts. The study asserts that writers in the New World posited the Americas and Africa as a rising alternative to the decadence of Europe. [SW]

Leffingwell, Edward (1998). Through a Brazilian lens. Art in America, v86, n4, p78.

This article discusses the history of photography in Brazil, and places the beginnings of Brazilian photography in the city of San Paolo in 1833. In addition, it describes a series of exhibitions held in New York City galleries of the work of of four young photographers in 1997, and links them to this history. [SW]

Spicer, Eloisa Yvonne (1999). La obra de Sterling Allen Brown en Espanol y su lugar en la poesia de la Diaspora Africana. Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 60/04-A, p. 1156.

This study evaluates the poetry of Sterling Allen Brown, who wrote primarily of rural African-Americans in the early twentieth century, and discusses translation of Brown's work into Spanish. Brown's use of irony, tall tales, stoicism, and humor are explored in their Spanish translations and compared to Afro-Hispanic poetry. In addition, connections are made between the work of Langston Hughes and that of Afro-Hispanic poets Nicolás Guillén and Adalberto Ortiz. [SW]

Telles, Edward E. (1993). Racial distance and region in Brazil: intermarriage in Brazilian urban areas. Latin American Research Review, v28, n2, p141.

This paper discusses interracial marriages in Brazil, and asserts that regional differences in the rates of interracial marriages have more to do with different racial groups' proximity to one another than with levels of racial tolerance. [SW]