POBS 0100. Elementary Portuguese.

Designed for students with little or no preparation in the language. Stresses the fundamental language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing. Aspects of Portuguese and Brazilian culture are also presented. Uses a situational/natural approach that emphasizes communication in Portuguese from the very first class. A year course; only in exceptional circumstances is credit given for one semester alone.

POBS 0105. Accelerated Portuguese.

This course serves as an accelerated introduction to Portuguese, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is also an introduction to the diverse cultures of Portuguese-speaking societies. Specifically, the course will look into the ethnic, racial, social, and gender diversity in these cultures. Designed for students who have no prior knowledge of Portuguese, POBS 0105 meets five hours per week.

POBS 0110. Intensive Portuguese.

A highly intensive course for students with little or no preparation in the language. Stresses the fundamental language skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing. Aspects of Portuguese and Brazilian culture are also presented. Uses a situational/natural approach that emphasizes communication in Portuguese from the very first class. A two-semester sequence in one semester with ten contact hours each week. Carries double credit and covers the equivalent of two semesters. This course should be chosen, in the fall, by students beginning the study of Portuguese as sophomores who would like to participate in the Brown-in-Brazil Program as juniors. Offered every semester.

POBS 0200. Elementary Portuguese.

Designed for students with little or no preparation in the language. Stresses the fundamental language skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing. Aspects of Portuguese and Brazilian culture are also presented. Uses a situational/natural approach that emphasizes communication in Portuguese from the very first class. A year course; only in exceptional circumstances is credit given for one semester alone. Prerequisite: POBS 0100.

POBS 0280. Mapping Food, Eating Meaning, Making Community: A Welcome to the Lusophone world.

This course explores the Lusophone world vis-à-vis the local, regional, and national culinary traditions of Brazil, Portugal, Luso-Africa, and Goa. Through a broad selection of cultural materials (music, film, television series, short stories, poems, visual art, etc) about cuisine in the Lusophone world. Students will gain introductory knowledge of Portuguese through brief instructional lessons. The class meets every 3-4 weeks to prepare and cook a class meal based on regional cuisines. This course focuses on creating: from a class zine to creative projects. The class will be taught in English with elements of Portuguese. No previous Portuguese language experience required.

POBS 0281. Digital Dreams: Brazil Cinema on the World Stage.

This course focuses on contemporary Brazilian cinema. New Brazilian Cinema emerged in the mid-nineties to international critical acclaim with films such as Central Station (Salles 1998) and City of God (Meireles/Lund 2002). Subsequently, Brazilian cinema has contended at the Oscars with Neighbouring Sounds (Filho 2012), The Second Mother (2015), documentaries: The Edge of Democracy (Costa 2019), Waste Land (Walker 2010), and controversial non-selected Aquarius (Filho 2016). This course posits Brazilian in its context socio-historical context and broaches social and political questions such as race, gender, urban space... Class is conducted in English and films have English subtitles.

POBS 0400. Writing and Speaking Portuguese.

Designed to improve the students' ability in contemporary spoken and written Portuguese. Using such cultural items as short stories, plays, films, videos, newspaper and magazine articles, and popular music, students discuss a variety of topics with the aim of developing good communication skills. Attention also given to developing writing ability. A systematic review of Portuguese grammar is included. Prerequisite: POBS 0105, or POBS 0110, or placement. Conducted in Portuguese. Completion of POBS 0400 is the minimum requirement for participation in the Brown-in-Brazil Program. Offered every semester.

POBS 0501. Mapping Food, Eating Meaning, Making Community: A Welcome to the Lusophone world.

This course explores the Lusophone world vis-à-vis the local, regional, and national culinary traditions of Brazil, Portugal, Luso-Africa, and Goa. Through a broad selection of cultural material (music, film, television series, short stories, poems, visual art, etc) that either directly or indirectly dialogues with the theme of food and cuisine in the Lusophone world. Students will gain an introductory knowledge of the Portuguese language through brief language instructional lessons of vocabulary that is pertinent to the theme as well as some work in basic communication skills. The class meets every 3 to 4 weeks at a pre-arranged time, to prepare and cook a class meal together based on the regional cuisine in discussion. This course focuses on creating: from a class zine to creative projects. Taught in English with elements of Portuguese. No previous Portuguese language experience required.

POBS 0610. Mapping Portuguese-Speaking Cultures: Brazil.

Selected literary and cultural texts that serve as vehicles for a deeper understanding of Brazilian society. Literary materials will be taken from several genres and periods with special attention to contemporary writings. Other media such as film and music will also be included. Considerable emphasis on strengthening speaking and writing skills. Prerequisite: POBS 0400, placement or instructor's permission. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0620. Mapping Portuguese-Speaking Cultures: Portugal and Africa.

Selected literary and cultural texts that serve as vehicles for a deeper understanding of Portuguese and Luso-African societies. Literary materials will be taken from several genres and periods with special attention to contemporary writings. Other media such as film and music will also be included. Considerable emphasis on strengthening speaking and writing skills. Prerequisite: POBS 0400, placement or instructor's permission. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0630A. The nature of things: an object-oriented approach to Lusophone studies.

This course addresses aspects of history, culture, politics, literature, and the arts in seven Portuguese-speaking countries: Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe. The course is designed to give students a hands-on approach to the study of Lusophone cultures: each week a country will be introduced by two objects paired with critical readings and short literary texts, music, or movies. We will be particularly mindful of objects that question and complicate the idea of “Lusophone,” against the backdrop of colonialism and postcolonialism, networks of design, production and consumption, extractivism and the environment, and creative industries. Conducted in Portuguese. Prerequistes: POBS 105 or POBS 0110 and POBS 0400 (or instructor’s permission)

POBS 0630B. Lusophone Cities in Literature, Film and Music..

Description: Rio de Janeiro, Luanda, Lisbon, Macau: the cities of the Portuguese-speaking world are more than just post-card images. They are microcosms of social activity and repositories of historical memory which offer up endless avenues for exploration. In this course we deconstruct urban spaces in Lusophone Africa, Lusophone Asia, Brazil, Portugal and the diaspora, via analyses of works of literature, film, music and more. Some of the topics to be explored include: social and racial inequality; colonialism and urbanization; cityscapes and memory. Beyond this, the course aims to improve oral and written fluency in Portuguese and build knowledge of Lusophone cultures. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0630D. A Luta Continua: African, Asian, & Indigenous Responses to Coloniality in the Lusophone World.

In this course we will examine the reverberations of anticolonial movements in Portuguese-speaking African and Asian territories, as well as in Indigenous movements in Brazil. Focusing on political, social, and cultural dimensions of emancipation, we will ask: How have African, Asian, and Indigenous writers and artists imagined emancipatory endeavors for their peoples, their countries, and their worlds? What is the role of cultural expression in world-sharing and world-building in response to centuries of colonialism and its legacies? We will broach these questions by reading a broad range of texts, watching films and documentaries, and looking at works of art that respond to manifestations of colonial power. This course also aims to build written and oral proficiency in Portuguese and develop knowledge of the diverse cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0630E. Gender and Sexuality in the Lusophone World.

This seminar will introduce students to a diverse range of literary figures and cultural producers from the Portuguese-speaking world, ranging from the nineteenth century to the present day, from Machado de Assis to Pabllo Vittar, with a specific focus on gender and sexuality, and their intersections with race and class. Covering a wide selection of genres from novels and novellas to short stories, television, film, and music, we will examine the role of literature and art in reinforcing and challenging norms of gender and sexuality. Students will engage with some key ideas from Gender Studies and Queer Theory and consider concepts from the Global South with regards to expressions of gender and sexuality in the Lusophone world. Topics will include conceptions of nuclear families, sexual deviance, homosociality, militant masculinity, queer representation, trans visibility, intersectionality, and colonial legacies. Taught in Portuguese.

POBS 0630F. Unveiling Herstories - Feminist Decolonial Perspectives in Literature and Arts in Portuguese.

This interdisciplinary course immerses students in the rich and diverse artistic expressions of women from Portuguese-speaking countries, encompassing literature, film, music, and visual arts. The main question in this course is: How does women's creative production contribute to building Herstories in a transnational Portuguese-speaking context? The course explores how these women contribute to a feminist decolonial approach, delving into the construction of Herstories through their art, challenging and reshaping historical narratives within their respective countries. Notably, the course sheds light on the conditions, or lack thereof, for producing a traditionally designed history, particularly emphasizing the often overlooked contributions of Black women in this context. The course aims to engage students in formulating and discussing questions regarding the crucial protagonism of women in cultural production within Portuguese-speaking regions. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0630G. Ubuntu: Black Narratives of Solidarity in the Lusophone World.

The course explores Ubuntu as a concept of humanity present in contemporary Black literature from the Portuguese-speaking world. This perspective emphasizes community healing, interconnectedness, and mutual care as essential components in the process of re-humanizing Black people in the aftermath of racial slavery. Through novels, short stories, crônicas, and poetry, the course examines solidarity within Black literature from Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor, and Goa. The course is conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0673A. Colonial Encounters in the Early Atlantic (HIST 0673A).

Interested students must register for HIST 0673A.

POBS 0710. Modern Brazil Goes to the Movies.

Looks at Brazil through the eye of the camera and focuses on topics such as migration, race relations, gender and family dynamics and social inequities in contemporary Brazilian culture and society. Students will read articles and critical essays relating to the themes of each film as they develop their oral and written language skills. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 0710A. (En)Gendering the Text: Gender & Sexuality in Latin American Literature and Film (GNSS 0710A).

Interested students must register for GNSS 0710A.

POBS 0720. Racial and Gender Politics in Contemporary Brazil (AFRI 0710A).

Interested students must register for AFRI 0710A.

POBS 0810. Belonging and Displacement: Cross-Cultural Identities.

Focuses on the representation of immigrants, migrants and other "border crossers" in contemporary literature from Brazil and other countries. How do people respond to the loss of home and the shift to a new culture? Is "going home" possible? How do individuals deal with their dual or triple identities? Piñon, Lispector, Scliar, Rushdie, Salih, Cristina Garcia, V. S. Naipaul and others. Conducted in English. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

POBS 0820. "Coming Out" Jewish, Gay or Black: Mistaken Identity in Literature from USA and Brazil.

Understood as the opposite of passing or assimilating, "coming out" evokes socio-psychological and cultural tensions between public and private identities that are becoming increasingly blurred. Ambivalent identities incite concerns about belongingness, marginalization, citizenship, dislocation, and diaspora. Feeling unfamiliar or displaced as a manifestation of cultural alterity can also lead to situations of mistaken identity. Recognizing today's shift away from essentialisms, this seminar will read fiction from the USA and Brazil by applying the tropes of "coming out" and belonging to illustrate the complex formations and ambiguous practices of identity construction. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students. Conducted in English.

POBS 0850. Comparative Approaches to the Literatures of Brazil and the United States.

Brazil and the United States have much in common: continental territories, huge natural resources, dynamic economies and multi-ethnic populations. Yet, their histories and cultures are distinctive and unique, as suggested in Vianna Moog's classic symbolic contrast between the Brazilian bandeirante and the American pioneer. We will undertake a comparative study of the two countries' literatures over the past eighty years with an eye towards exploring contextual, thematic and technical analogies as well as differences. Faulkner, Ramos, Lispector, Morrison, Rosa, Scliar, DeLillo, Carvalho, and Doctorow. Some attention to music, film and the visual arts. Enrollment limited to 15. Conducted in English.

POBS 0910. On the Dawn of Modernity.

We will analyze how a new mindset that would later be called modernity slowly emerged from the medieval world and how the trials and errors of the 15th and 16th century navigators helped shape that transformation. The seminar is interdisciplinary insofar as the readings will include developments in astronomy, geography, shipbuilding, mathematics, philosophy, as well as what could be called early anthropology, as stepping stones to the first scientific revolution. Conducted in English. Enrollment limited to: 19. Reserved for First Year students.

POBS 0915. On Cultural and Personal Identity.

A close analysis of concepts such as cultural and personal identities by means of a variety of interdisciplinary readings, including a combination of essays and a set of works of literature by diverse authors from various countries and cultures.

POBS 0970. Tropical Delights: Imagining Brazil in History and Culture (HIST 0537B).

Interested students must register for HIST 0537B.

POBS 0990. Mapping Cross-Cultural Identities.

How do we construct our own identity as life becomes a multitude of narrative threads intersecting and overlapping like roadways on a map? How do we reconfigure identities vis-à-vis those who surround us? We will investigate the ever-changing map of cultural identities and its repercussions on human existence via contemporary literature and a series projects that incorporate the arts (visual, digital, literary) and oral history. Some of the writers include Julia Alvarez, Kiran Desai, Junot Diaz, Milton Hatoum, Chang-Rae Lee, Clarice Lispector, Dinaw Mengestu, Nélida Piñon, Salman Rushdie, Taiye Selasi and others. No experience in the arts necessary.

POBS 1020. Anthropocene with Many Accents: Environmentalizing the Afro-Luso-Brazilian Triangle.

This course explores finer aspects of the cultural, social, ecological, and artistic landscapes of three historically interconnected Atlantic spaces: Angola, Portugal, and Brazil. Inspired by the concept of “Afro-Luso-Brazilian triangle” by the late Brown Professor Anani Dzidzienyo, we will foreground the intersectionality of struggles for the environment, racial and social justice, and gender equality, while introducing different perspectives on environmental thought. By acknowledging that we can learn from the experiences, testimonies, and fictional creations of local communities, literature, performance and the arts are central to this course. Conducted in English.

POBS 1025. The Future of the Past: 21st-Century Fiction from the Portuguese-Speaking World.

About a sixth of the twenty-first century is already over. What perspectives have contemporary writers of the Portuguese-speaking world brought to bear on the burning issues of the new century? How do literary narratives mold our thinking about the challenges of the present and the burdens of the past? What can the writing and reading of fiction do to change the way we see ourselves and each other? Readings and films from Angola, Brazil, Guiné-Bissau, Mozambique, and Portugal. One previous course in literature recommended. Conducted in English.

POBS 1070. Plugging into Brazil: Print, Television, and the Internet.

We will investigate the many nuances of the Brazilian media in its various forms and discuss Brazil using newspapers, leading magazines, current television broadcasts and the Internet. What are the characteristics of the Brazilian media? How does the media shape the views of Brazilians living in Brazil and those abroad? What is the role of the Brazilian media in a globalized world? Conducted in Portuguese. Prerequisite: One of the following: POBS 0610, 0620, 0710, or consent of the instructor.

POBS 1070A. On Both Sides of the Lens: Latin American Women Filmmakers (GNSS 1070).

Interested students must register for GNSS 1070.

POBS 1080. Performing Brazil: Language, Theater, Culture.

Designed to deepen the students' understanding of Brazilian culture and society through the performing arts. Students will read a series of plays and respond to them in a variety of ways: in writing, verbally, and through performance. The course will include poetry and music as these can also be performed. Throughout the semester students will also be working on creating their own performance pieces. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1090. Portuguese-speaking Cultures Via Film.

We will view and discuss films from Brazil, Lusophone Africa, Portugal and other regions as vehicles to understand the cultural diversity of Portuguese-speaking countries. Readings will include related fiction and non-fiction focusing on immigration, gender, race, family dynamics and social inequality. Students will write a series of short papers and develop a final project in consultation with the instructor. Particular attention will be paid to contemporary Brazilian cinema. Prerequisite: POBS 0610, 0620, 1030, or 1080, or instructor permission. Enrollment limited to 20. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1210. Afro-Brazilians and the Brazilian Polity (AFRI 1210).

Interested students must register for AFRI 1210.

POBS 1370. US and Brazil: Tangled Relation (HIST 1370).

Interested students should register for HIST 1370.

POBS 1500A. African Literatures of Portuguese Expression.

A survey of representative African narrative literature of Portuguese expression (Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola, and Mozambique). The selections will cover the periods before and after the independence of these former Portuguese colonies. Conducted in Portuguese. Enrollment limited to 40.

POBS 1500B. The Azores – A World through Literature.

For 500 years, the Azores – a nine island archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic, have been a mandatory connecting entrepot between the world at large and Portugal and between the Western Hemisphere and Europe. The archipelago has produced an impressive body of literature that, particularly in the last century, has evolved into a body of works that reflects a collective personality with distinctive features. The course will analyze the most significant works of literature produced in the islands and in the Portuguese-American communities. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500C. Brazilian Literature in Translation: Clarice Lispector-a Woman of Spirit.

As Brazil's foremost woman writer of the XXth century, Clarice Lispector has received critical attention from French, Brazilian and American feminists. With the aim of appreciating her work comparatively, this course will examine four novels and four story collections from the following theoretical perspectives: existentialist, feminist, poststructuralist and Jewish hermeneutics. Conducted in English.

POBS 1500D. Brief Encounters: Modernist and Postmodernist Brazilian Short Fiction.

With Modernism and Postmodernism as the primary theoretical frames, we will examine the aesthetics of short fiction by discussing short stories and novellas from the 1920s to the 1990s that foreground the characteristics of these literary currents and their respective regional and urban expressions. As images of Brazil, this fiction will also be read within the context of feminist, hybrid, subaltern, and postcolonial stances. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500E. Contemporary and Brazilian Fiction: New Paths and New Perspectives.

Selected prose narratives from the 1970s to the present are read with the aim of identifying new paths and perspectives in contemporary Brazilian literature and culture that challenge traditional literary and cultural hierarchies as well as canonized aesthetics. Milton Hatoum, João Gilberto Noll, Caio Fernando Abreau, Marlilene Felinto, Sônia Coutinho, Roberto Drummond, Sérgio Sant'Anna, Rubem Fonseca, and others. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500F. Contemporary Portuguese Women Writers.

Analyzes women's discourse and proposes an interpretation of female characters in the works of six contemporary Portuguese women writers: Maria Velho da Costa Maina Mendes, Maria Teresa Horta Ana, Agustina Bessa-Luís O Mosterio, Teolinda Gersão Paisagem com Mulher ao Fundo, Lídia Jorge O Jardim sem Limites, and Ivette Centeno Os Jardins de Eva. By way of contrast, Mário Ventura's A Revolta dos Herdeiros is discussed as an example of how a male writer fictionalizes a woman as narrator.

POBS 1500G. Cultural Politics of Hybridity in Modern Brazilian Fiction.

Explores Brazilian fiction that manifests intersections between erudite, popular and mass cultures. With the aim of challenging unnatural polarities that separate these forms of cultural expression, the theme of hybridity will be examined in prose fiction from the 1960s to the present within the context of the development of the modern Brazilian novel and recent theories on cultural hybridization. Readings will focus on the socio-political and cultural implications of hybridization in prose fiction by such authors as Caio Fernando Abreu, Ivan Angelo, Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, Roberto Drummond, Rubem Fonseca, Clarice Lispector, José Agrippino de Paula, Adélia Prado, Sergio Sant'Anna, and others. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500H. Esthers of the Diaspora: Female Jewish Voices from Latin America.

Fiction by and/or about Jewish women from Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Chile, and Cuba. Evoking the image of the biblical Queen Esther who lived between two worlds, these Jewish voices will be discussed from the perspectives of feminist, hybrid, diasporic, and transcultural theories. Special attention to Brazil's Clarice Lispector. The expression of the role of women vis-à-vis the immigrant experience will also be discussed. Conducted in English.

POBS 1500I. Fiction and History (COLT 1810G).

Interested students must register for COLT 1810G.

POBS 1500L. Prophets in the Tropics-Latin American Jewish Writing.

Compares the differences and the parallels between the narratives of the Jewish diaspora in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Peru. As decentered dissenters in literature, these writers invariably address their diasporist situation vis-à-vis the larger society via such issues as immigration, cultural diversity, exile thinking, nationalism, discrimination, and postcolonialism. Prose by female and male writers, along with background materials in history, biography, memoirs, essay, and film. Conducted in English. Prerequisite: one 100-level literature course.

POBS 1500M. Rereading Colonial Brazil.

In the first part of the course we will discuss major literary and artistic achievements in Brazilian society during the first three centuries after Brazil's "discovery." In the second part of the course we will consider how novelists, poets (including song writers), filmmakers, visual artists and social scientists since Independence have reassessed the colonial period from a post-colonial position. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500O. The "I" of the Beholder: Self-Examination and Self-Display in Modern Brazilian Fiction.

This course will address the first-person impulse in modern Brazilian fiction with the aim of analyzing the process of self-consciousness vis-à-vis national identity, individualism, memorialism, authoritarianism, and subjectivity. The course will also consider the first person in the context of realism, modernism, regionalism, and postmodernism. Discussion will center upon prose by Mário de Andrade, Rachel de Queiroz, Antônio Olavo Pereira, Clarice Lispector, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Nélida Piñon, Ivan Ângelo, Rubem Fonseca, and others.

POBS 1500P. The Personal Dynamics of Witnessing: Self-Interpretation in Brazilian Autobiographical Fiction.

Analyzes first-person narration and the ethics of self-examination, self-display, and self-invention. First-person narrators are read as self-chroniclers who become subject and object, or spectator and spectacle, of their own lives. Readings from such writers as Mário de Andrade, José Lins do Rego, Cyro dos Anjos, Antóio Olavo Pereira, Clarice Lispector, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Nélida Piñon, Rubem Fonseca, and Sérgio Sant'Anna. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500Q. The Sage of Suspicion: The Skepticism of Machado de Assis.

Focuses on the major novels and short stories of Brazil's foremost realist. Presentations and discussions address character and narrative distrust as well as skepticism related to unreliable narrators and ironic voices. Also explores the sociopolitical picture of Brazil in the second half of the 19th century in the context of Machado's Human Comedy. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500R. Twentieth-Century Portuguese Prose.

Reading and textual analysis of some significant writers from Portugal, along with information related to their historical context. José Saramago, Lídia Jorge, Vergílio Ferreira, Helder Macedo, Agustina Bessa-Luís, and Rosa Lobato de Faria. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500U. The Leaping Chameleon:Reconfiguration of Self-Identity and Culture in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction.

Focuses on reconfigurations/redefinitions of concepts of identity -- personal and cultural in Brazilian prose fiction form the 1980s to the present. Protean forms and unstable subjectivities become apparent in fictional portrayals of aberrant and disfigured beings in liminal spaces, these serving as vehicles critical of urban strife, cultural instability, estrangement, and social segregation, written by authors such as André Sant'Anna, Bernardo Carvalho, Lilian Fontes, Marcelino Freire, Cíntia Moscovich, Ivana Arruda Leite, Luiz Ruffato, and others. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500V. Modern Brazilian Theater: Nelson Rodrigues and the Dynamics of Performance.

Reading the psychological, mythical and Carioca plays by Nelson Rodrigues will serve to define modern Brazilian theater. Exploring influences from Greek tragedy to Freud, discussions will focus upon social rituals and taboos Rodrigues dramatized to unmask Brazilian society. Film/taped performances and criticism will be studied for interpreting modes of performativity and as tools for cultural analysis to understand the distance between self and behavior. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1500W. The 'New Jew' and the Diaspora: Voices from Israel, Brazil and America.

Studies Jewish identity and belongingness in Israel and the Jewish Diasporas of Brazil and America within the context of multiple homelands. If the concept of the 'New Jew' suggests alternative Jewish universes in which Israel is not the center, does this imply the end of the Jewish Diaspora? This course will debate this question via novels and short stories by some of the representative writers from the above three nations. Conducted in English. Enrollment limited to 20.

POBS 1500X. Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Poetry: From Text to Performance.

Introduces students to Brazilian poetry from modernists like Oswald de Andrade, Murilo Mendes, Cecília Meireles, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and João Cabral de Melo Neto to contemporaries such as Augusto de Campos, Francisco Alvim, Arnaldo Antunes, and Ricardo Aleixo. In addition to the reading and discussion of significant works by a variety of poets and literary critics, the course includes a workshop component, in which participants will be encouraged to share their oral interpretation of poems of their choice. The course concludes with a poetry performance by the course members and other interested parties. Conducted in Portuguese. Enrollment limited to 15.

POBS 1501A. Out of Portuguese Africa: Deconstructing Portuguese Colonialism in Literature.

Examines both fictional narratives written in Portuguese by African authors and fictional works by Portuguese authors that focus on the colonial experience of Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde. Aims in particular at the critical analysis of Portuguese colonialism as a means to verify its specificity or lack thereof within the larger context of overarching European colonialisms. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1501B. Brazilian Biographies (HIST 1313).

Interested students must register for HIST 1313.

POBS 1501C. Interwar Fascisms and the Portuguese Estado Novo (1932-1945).

Focusing on the interwar period and, this course studies the political nature of the Salazar’s dictatorship (the so-called Estado Novo, New State) in its various facets: nationalism, political representations, repression, social policy, Church and State relationship). The Portuguese history will be placed within a wider context, privileging transnational connections and comparative approaches. Was the Portuguese regime a fascist one? What are the affinities and distinctiveness in terms of contemporary dictatorships (Fascism, Nazism and Francoism)? To what extent those regimes were connected? Conducted in English.

POBS 1501D. Pathways of Brazilian Narrative.

The seminar investigates Brazilian narrative from Modernism to the present, at relevant moments from 20th to 21st centuries. Modernism and modernization have dismantled the romantic emphasis on narrative forms and themes as a unitary vision of social and cultural identity. Macunaíma (1928), by Mario de Andrade opened to Brazilian literature a new kind of fiction that considers the multiplicity of a hybrid nation process of identification; a new paradigm re-using themes of exile, mobile identities, violence, terrorism, and interaction between the national and the global environments. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1501E. Histories of Global Health from Lusophone Africa: Biomedical Actions in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea.

To explore histories of health, disease and global public health actions in Lusophone Africa: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau. A broad approach to health considers sociocultural, economic, political and environmental factors. The anthropological take draws students’ attention to the existing links between global structures, historical processes and power relations and patterns of ill-heath, epidemics and biomedical responses or research in urban areas or in remote African villages in this part of the global south (c.1880s-2015). It unveils a century-old (western) morality underlying in public health programs, eradication visions, humanitarian actions, development discourses, security preparedness or other global health actions/mantras. Conducted in English.

POBS 1501F. The Enlightened Censor.

In this course we will follow the trajectories of 18th century Portuguese censors as they permit or forbid books by Voltaire, Rousseau or Locke, but also sermons, plays and dissertations. Is it possible that the censorship of the 18th century has shared with the Enlightenment so many key elements that it could be regarded more as an enlightened censorship than as an anti-Enlightenment censorship? The answer to this question will allow us to better understand the difficult birth of modernity and pluralism and the challenges both face today. In English.

POBS 1501G. Remembering and Forgetting the Portuguese Colonial Empire Public Memory.

This course explores the public memory and forgetting of the Portuguese colonial empire, from the colonial to the postcolonial period. Concentrating on the construction and reproduction of an official memory about the empire in the public space of Portugal, the course will also highlight the entangling between the former imperial metropolis and its former colonies. Also, broader connections will be established between the Portuguese-speaking world and wider European and global contexts. The purpose is to draw attention to the many ways in which colonial legacies are present today as a field of hegemony and ideological disputes.

POBS 1501I. Luso-African Literature in a Post-Colonial Context: A Decolonial Reading of the West.

According to Franz Fanon, decolonization is a historical process that can only be understood when it becomes transparent to itself as the historicizing movement that gives it form and content is discerned. Literature offers approaches that allow a deeper understanding of the post-colonial context and its social and cultural effects. We will examine Luso-African literature from Portugal, Angola, and Mozambique, analyzing it through themes such as race, identity, language, and ancestry. We will perform a decolonial investigation of this literary corpus by working with a theoretical apparatus that will help us to engage in reflections on post-coloniality and its relationship with the West. The course will be taught in Portuguese.

POBS 1520. Latin American Horror (GNSS 1520).

Interested students must register for GNSS 1520.

POBS 1600A. The Afro-Luso-Brazilian Triangle (AFRI 1020C).

Interested students must register for AFRI 1020C.

POBS 1600B. Colonialism, Nationalism and Gender in Portuguese India.

This seminar focuses on Portuguese rule and discourse in India, from an anthropological and historical perspective. Colonialism and nationalism in India will be studied in relation to former Portuguese colonies in Africa as well as to other experiences in India under the British raj. Gender issues will also be addressed. Attention to the case of the devadasi (ritual dancers). Conducted in English.

POBS 1600C. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Education: Education and the Portuguese-Speaking World.

A comparative education course focusing on schooling in Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, and these Portuguese-speaking populations in the U.S. The role of education in these diverse societies, as well as theories and methodologies for cross-cultural research and analysis, are explored from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600D. Portuguese Discoveries and Early Modern Globalization.

Introduces the study of global early modernity through the lens of the Portuguese empire c. 1400-1700. Maps out the origins, motivations, and nature of Portugal's imperial expansion. Establishes the patterns of the Portuguese presence in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Emphasizes the dependence of the Portuguese empire on other societies, its institutional fragility, its social complexity, and the difficult relations between ideology and economy. Explores the idea of an early "cultural globalization" in religion, art and politics from Iberia to Japan via Brazil, Africa and India. Avoids the traditional idea of an exceptionality of the Portuguese overseas experience. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600H. Politics and Culture under the Brazilian Military Dictatorship 1964-85 (HIST 1967L).

Interested students must register for HIST 1967L.

POBS 1600J. Conflicts, Diasporas and Diversities: Religion in the Early Portuguese Empire.

Focuses on the history of the early modern Portuguese religious world, covering such topics as religious diversity and oppression, the Portuguese Jews and their experiences of persecution and Diaspora, the role of the Inquisition, the establishment of the Society of Jesus in Portugal and the creation of a network of Jesuit missions in the Portuguese world, the Counter-Reformation and the evangelization of so-called gentiles and infidels, and messianic beliefs in the Kingdom of God. Primary sources include works by Portuguese chroniclers in translation, as well as the original editions housed at the John Carter Brown Library. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600K. On the Dawn of Modernity.

A look at the emergence of modernity and its conflicts with the classical world view as revealed in the writings of the Portuguese navigators (XVth and XVIth centuries) on their encounters with the non-European world. Readings will focus on fields such as astronomy, cartography, geography, shipbuilding, and anthropology, as stepping stones to the first scientific revolution. This literature has been practically unknown to non-Portuguese readers. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600O. Displacement: Colonialism, Migration and Transnationalism in Lusophone Societies.

"Displacement" will be the starting point for the study of a range of classic and contemporary debates on colonialism, migration, slavery, plantation systems, gender inequities, racism, urbanization, transnationalism and global health issues. We will mostly refer to cases related to Portuguese colonialism and contemporary Portuguese-speaking societies - Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Angola, the Asian enclaves and lusophone diaspora.

POBS 1600P. The Last Empire: Portuguese Colonialsm and Decolonization in Comparative Perspective.

Adopting a comparative perspective, the course gives special emphasis to political, ideological and military dimensions of colonial rule in Africa. The first part deals with the evolution of Portuguese colonialism since World War II. The second part focuses on the process of decolonization after 1974, integrating the dissolution of the Portuguese Empire in the international context of the Cold War. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600Q. Perceptions of the Other and Ethnographical Writing in Early Modern Portugal.

Focuses on the privileged situation of Portugal as far as the knowledge of extra-European cultures in early modern Europe is concerned. The course examines agents, instruments and mechanisms of information gathering and diffusion of the "outer world" in Europe via Lisbon. The most important topoi of these Portuguese ethnographical representations will be discussed through a close analysis of a wide range of contemporary texts and visual records. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600R. The Lusophone Black Atlantic: Cultures and Religions Across the Ocean.

Addresses the cultural unity and differentiation within the Lusophone Black Atlantic, with a special focus on mobility, diaspora, and transnationalism. After a general introduction on the historical and cultural construction of the triangular relations between Portugal, Brazil, and Africa, including the consideration of such issues as luso-tropicalism, "creolization," and colonialism, we will move into the topic of Afro-Brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé as a way to analyze how a matrix civilization was transported across the Atlantic to Brazil and back to Portugal. The issue of the transnationalism and mobility of such religions, accompanying the diaspora of Africans and Brazilians to Portugal over the last 20 years, will provide the basis for further discussion of the notion of "lusophone black cultures." The course bibliography includes anthropological texts as well as current Luso-African and Brazilian literature. Conducted in English.

POBS 1600S. 17th Century Portuguese World.

Analyzes the major historical events that influenced the Portuguese world under Habsburg rule and during the baroque movement. To question definition of Empire, nation, national identity, colonial spaces. It will examine Brazil during the Dutch invasion; the expectations of a future independence from the yoke of Spain; political, economic and religious situation after the Portuguese restoration in 1640; political and economic struggle that followed; the Portuguese Inquisition and the missionary efforts undertaken in Brazil; the prophetical and messianic expectations of the Iberian world (Catholic and Jewish); and the political and cultural aspects of seventeenth-century Ibero-American baroque culture. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1600X. Urban Latin America (LAST 1510I).

Interested students must register for LAST 1510I.

POBS 1600Z. The Making of Modern Brazil (LAST 1510J).

Interested students must register for LAST 1510J.

POBS 1601A. The Birth of the Modern World: A Global History of Empires.

A multidisciplinary comparative analysis of the role of empires in the formation of the modern world and globalization since the 'new' imperialism of nineteenth century to the end of the colonial empires in the second half of the twentieth century. Case studies from several empires (Portuguese, American, Soviet, French and British) offer a global history of imperialism and colonialism. The links between imperialism, internationalism, nationalism, and modern racism; the relationship between imperial and colonial societies and cultures; the role of international and transnational institutions in the transformation of imperialism and the global emergence of human rights. Conducted in English. Enrollment limited to 40.

POBS 1601B. Defying the Wind of Change: Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa, 1961-1980.

Examines the political, military, intelligence and economic ties between Portugal, Rhodesia (before and after its Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965) and apartheid-era South Africa as the three countries resisted calls for equal political representation for men and women of all races while exploiting their growing financial muscle as well as the circumstances of the Cold War. The bloc was undone by the Portuguese revolution of April 1974, which led to the independence of Angola and Mozambique, and left Rhodesia’s borders exposed. Extensive use of recently declassified material gathered in Lisbon and Pretoria. Conducted in English. Enrollment limited to 25.

POBS 1601C. From Dictatorship to Democracy in the Iberian Peninsula: Transformations and Current Challenges.

Studies the origins and nature of the Franco and Salazar dictatorships, outwardly similar and largely concurrent, but in fact different in their aims, outlook and methods. Special attention to the personalties of the two dictators as well as the legacy of Spain's Civil War and Portugal’s colonial Empire as elements of differentiation between the two regimes. The creation of democratic regimes in Spain and Portugal in the mid-1970s in the aftermath of prolonged dictatorships and the current political and economic challenges faced by these two countries are also considered in detail. Conducted in English. Enrollment limited to 25.

POBS 1601E. Travels and Exhibitions: Writing, Collecting + Displaying the World in the 19th + 20th Centuries.

To explore a cultural and intellectual history of the Portuguese-speaking world, concentrating on the circulation of objects, images, ideas and people within Brazil, Angola, Goa and different European spaces, from Lisbon to Paris. To discuss the history of science, the relationship between knowledge and colonial contexts, the interdependence between ideological agendas and exhibitions, the affirmation of national and imperial identities through spaces of visual and material knowledge. Through a series of comparative and transnational case studies this course will promote the crossing of contemporary theoretical questions engaging with historical written and visual sources. Conducted in English.

POBS 1601G. The Politics and Government of Lusophone Countries.

Ranging from regional powers to small island states, from consolidated democracies to hybrid regimes, from good governance to weak states and petro-states, the Lusophone world represents a diverse and stimulating political context. This course provides a systematic analysis of Lusophone political institutions and behavior, while considering the wider implications of the Lusophone experience. It is organized thematically, with topics including democratization; state structures; political institutions and culture; clientelism; and party systems. Each topic focuses on a set of Lusophone countries. While all Lusophone countries are considered, the cases of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Angola are particularly emphasized.

POBS 1601H. Contemporary Migrations: Movements, Experiences and Policies of Belonging.

Addresses theme of contemporary migrations, its visibility and strategic relevance (social, economic, political, demographic and cultural). Drawing on plural theoretical contributions, as well as empirical results from research carried out with Portuguese migrants in various sites and with diverse migrant populations based in Portugal,discussing: Contemporary global migration present and future trends;Portugal as an emigration and immigration context (particularities, tendencies, potentialities, obstacles);Daily-life aspects and experiences of migration (work, family, domestic life, culture consumption practices, transnational networks of belonging, association life); Identity, belonging and cultural (re)production strategies, tools and products. Approach to contemporary migration, emphasizing the discussion of data emerging from qualitative research.

POBS 1601I. Media + Propaganda in Contemporary History.

This course intends to study what was the role of the media and propaganda in the construction of the political reality by means an interdiciplinary and empirical analysis of several paradigmatic cases of the contemporary history in the lusophone and Iberian worlds. Special attention is paid to the following relevant topics: the historical evolution of the Portuguese media in the United States of America; the creation of the New State of Salazar in Portugal and the New Spain of Franco; the Portuguese diplomacy in the Spanish Civil War; or the transition to democracy in the Iberian Peninsula. Conducted in English.

POBS 1601K. Early Modern Global History at the John Carter Brown Library: A Research Workshop.

Gain firsthand experience developing your own research project at the world-renowned John Carter Brown Library! The JCB houses thousands of rare books, maps, and manuscripts pertaining to the diverse histories and cultures of the early Americas. With opportunities to learn from a wide range of professional curators, conservators, librarians, and researchers in residence, students will approach the JCB collection as a site for research into colonial histories and as a subject of study in its own right. Class will be conducted in English, but a reading knowledge of Portuguese and/or Spanish is recommended. Most readings will be in English, and students will be able to develop research projects with JCB material in language(s) of their choosing.

POBS 1601M. Migrants, Political Activism and the Racialization of Labor.

Histories of white nationalism in US law and discourse to criminalize, marginalize and racialize migrant progressive politics and labor activities are explored through first-hand and secondary sources, discussions and site visits. Migrants challenging limitations on civic rights as a result of fluid and contradictory intersections of racial and ethnic categorizations are examined through a primary case example of Portuguese-speaking workers in North America over the 20th century from Europe, Atlantic Islands and Africa. Topics include socialist and communist labor movement; anti-immigrant laws; industrial capitalism’s exploitation of migrant workers and role in racial marginalization; migrant agency and action for change. In English

POBS 1601N. Politics of Indigeneity in Brazil (LACA 1503Q).

Interested students must register for LACA 1503Q.

POBS 1601O. The Portuguese Estado Novo. Visual Propaganda, Public Use of Past and Self-Representation.

Starting with Pierre Nora’s concept of Lieux de Memoire – places where the exhausted capital of collective memory condenses and is expressed – this course explores from two perspectives, the history of Portuguese Estado Novo. It embarks upon a chronological study of the period following the economic, political, and social transformations that had affected Portugal. ScrutinizeS how the Estado Novo created, used and re-adapted some Portuguese Lieux de Memoire in order to legitimize itself; shape the way Portuguese understand their country; generate a favorable image in Portugal and abroad. Conducted in English.

POBS 1601P. Global Decolonization in Africa and Asia: the Portuguese Case in a Comparative Perspective.

This course provides a critical, comparative assessment of the global decolonization momentum, taking the Portuguese case as the key case-study. It does so by exploring diverse historiographical problems and historical processes that shaped the multiple trajectories of decolonization after 1945. As a consequence, the course also addresses the role of international and transnational networks, movements and institutions in the global histories of decolonization, as major players in the demise of European colonialism. The historical legacies of late colonialism in politics, society and culture, both in former colonies and metropoles, will also be assessed. Conducted in English.

POBS 1601Q. Portuguese and Lusophone African Literature and Cinema.

The course aims to study the relationship between literature and cinema in the context of renowned Portuguese authors and Portuguese-speaking Africa. Thus, students will study a varied group of great novelists (José Saramago, José Eduardo Agualusa, Mia Couto) and notable filmmakers (João Botelho, Ivo M. Ferreira, Teresa Prata, Lula Buarque de Hollanda) who chose to direct films from the texts of these writers. And, due to their importance, unavoidable filmmakers (Paulo Rocha, Manoel de Oliveira and Miguel Gomes, Flora Gomes) will also be approached. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1601R. Beyond the Masterpiece Tradition: Mining the Archive for Alternative Histories of Portuguese Cinema.

Drawing on anthropology, new film history and media archaeology, this course takes the moving image archive as a departure point to revisit, reconceptualise and expand Portuguese film history and historiography. We will consider the works and formats that have been neglected – actualities, utility films, newsreels, amateur films, domestic footage and film fragments – to revise theoretical and historiographical assumptions and recover parallel, interrupted and non-teleological film histories that have hitherto failed to be written. We will also examine the appropriation of archival footage by other film productions and discuss the impact of the ‘digital turn’ on film archives. Conducted in English.

POBS 1601S. Environment, Health and Colonial Society in Africa- 19th and 20th Centuries.

This course seeks to build an understanding of how environment and health intersected in colonial Africa in the late 19th and 20th centuries by looking diachronically at a varied set of cases that reveal important aspects about changing disease ecologies and knowledge production, about environmental change and human agency, but also about power and inequalities in colonial societies. Though guided by a comparative cross-national and cross-imperial dimension, the course also seeks to fill the gap in the study of environment, health and imperialism by bringing to the fore the cases of Angola, Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Mozambique and Guiné-Bissau, territories under Portuguese colonial rule until the 1970s. Open to all students, this course is also intended as complementary to other courses offered at Brown, namely on the History of Africa and the History of STEaM.

POBS 1601T. Regimes of Contention in Southern Europe.

This course takes Portugal, in the context of the southern European semi-periphery, as a case-study for exploring the contentious dynamics between institutions and movement actors from the 1960s onwards. The course is divided in three parts: (1) the research problems associated with this course; (2) Portugal’s semi-peripheral position; (3) social movements historical analysis in Portugal, considering the state-party-movement nexus, as well important critical junctures such as 1974 Revolution and the 2010 austerity period. Even though the course is to be taught chronologically for pedagogical reasons, in order to understand its historical evolution in a global context, students will be required to develop insights that cross the various topics under study. As such, this course will provide them with an in-depth reading and historical understanding of the Portuguese mobilizations from below in the European context.

POBS 1601U. International Solidarity and the Struggle for Independence of Portuguese Colonies.

This course introduces students to an overview of the international solidarity with the struggle for independence of Portuguese colonies, including the myriad ways through which states, non-state actors and individual activists engaged with the liberation movements. Building on existing scholarship, the course will center on the role played by international solidarity in fueling anticolonial and anti-racist discourses for foreign audiences and attracting material and non-material resources for the liberation movements.

POBS 1601V. Salazar’s Dictatorship in Comparative Historical Perspective: From the Fascist Era to Decolonization.

This course provides a critical approach to the principal themes in the history of the Salazar dictatorship (Estado Novo) from a comparative perspective. It covers the entire span of the regime and incorporates its main dimensions – nationalism, colonialism, repressive apparatus, Church/State relations, system of political organisation. Particular emphasis is placed on the wider international context, highlighting the importance of transnational connections and comparative approaches in the process of historical understanding. To what extent did the regime provide a unique response to the interwar crisis of liberalism? How did Salazarism influence the rise of authoritarian regimes in Europe and South America? Was Salazarism different from Fascism? How useful is the concept of normalization in defining the experience of everyday life under the regime? Providing answers to these questions will require drawing from the variegated inputs of political, social and cultural history.

POBS 1601W. Challenging the Colonial Complex: Theory and Praxis in the Portuguese-speaking world.

This course maps anti-colonial, postcolonial and decolonial critique and praxis in the Portuguese speaking world. It investigates a wide range of writings, while bringing forth an array of artistic, cultural, and media practices of resistance. The course is designed to claim the centrality of these voices and to encourage students to think visually – through not just about images, through not just about art. Reading, watching, listening, and discussing intensely and with care will be the basis of our academic work as we explore the meanings and practices of decolonization in the Portuguese-speaking world. Reading knowledge of Portuguese is required.

POBS 1601X. Media, Entertainment and Politics in the Lusophone World.

The main goal of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the realms of politics, media and entertainment in different national contexts sharing a common official language: Portugal, Brazil, and the African Portuguese-speaking countries. This knowledge is essential for understanding the contextual features of political action, social dynamics and cultural and artistic production in these countries. The course starts with a series of lectures aimed at fostering theoretical knowledge and critical thinking on political regimes, media systems and the relationship between entertainment and politics. Subsequently, the course acquires a more empirical nature: after depicting the general political features of the countries under analysis, sessions will be devoted to the discussion of media systems, media and politics dynamics and the relationship between entertainment and politics in Portugal, Brazil, and African Portuguese-speaking countries.

POBS 1601Y. Indigenous Arts and Activism in Brazil.

This course will examine current forms of intersection between Indigenous arts and political activism, focusing on Brazil. Which possible futures do Indigenous arts envision? Topics include Indigenous creative interventions in the colonial archive, approaches to repatriation and Indigenous curatorial practice, critical perspectives on cultural appropriation and the importance of centering Indigenous voices, public space interventions by Indigenous artists, and the overlap between Indigenous arts and anti-racism as well as Indigenous arts and environmental activism. We will give special focus to the work of Indigenous artists, authors, and filmmakers engaged in activism and advocacy for Indigenous rights. The course will feature Indigenous artists, writers, activists, and scholars as guest speakers, offering firsthand perspectives. Utilizing campus resources the seminar will serve as a unique platform for an in-depth examination of present-day Indigenous arts within the Brazilian context. Conducted in English.

POBS 1670. History of Brazil (HIST 1310).

Interested students must register for HIST 1310.

POBS 1671. Brazil: From Abolition to Emerging World Power (HIST 1312).

Interested students must register for HIST 1312.

POBS 1694. Comparative History of Abolitionism in the Atlantic World.

To develop a transnational approach to the rise of abolitionism in the Atlantic world. In a comparative framework, tracing the rise of abolitionism in Europe, Americas, and Africa, examining the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade, the rise of colonialism in Africa, and the growth of forced labor in the wake of transatlantic slave trade. Deals with key debates in the literature of African, Atlantic history, including causes and motivations of abolitionism, relationship between the suppression of the slave trade and the growth of forced labor in Africa, the historical ties between abolitionism and the early stages of colonialism in Africa.

POBS 1740. Artful Teaching: Intersecting the Arts with Foreign and Second Language Acquisition.

How can we create meaningful experiences for those learning a foreign or second language? What makes the creative arts (art)iculate so powerfully and naturally with foreign and second language acquisition? How do the arts enable students to become aware of surrounding cultures while simultaneously acquiring a new language? This course will explore connections between the arts--visual, literary and performing--and language acquisition in a combined workshop and seminar approach. Readings will include authors Sheridan Blau, Augusto Boal, Shirley Brice Heath, Paulo Freire, Jan Mandell, Twyla Tharp, Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and others.

POBS 1800A. "Que país é este?" Twentieth-Century Definitions of Brazil and Brazilianness.

Focuses on three major areas: the portraits of Brazil from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, mainly by left-leaning intellectuals; the economic and political model of Brazil imposed by the military regime of 1964-1985; and the subversion of the official definitions of Brazil in the "anti-histories" of the Abertura period (1975-1985). Materials drawn from the social sciences, history, literature, and film. Authors include Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Gilberto Freire, Vianna Moog, Paulo Freire, Golbery do Couto e Silva, Roberto da Matta, Caio Prado Jr., Richard Morse, and others. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1800B. Lusofonia: National Identities and Transnational Challenges.

The creation of the Commonwealth of Portuguese-Speaking Countries has reignited debate concerning the roots, history, contemporary developments, and future prospects of the Portuguese-speaking world. This seminar focuses on key issues regarding the identities of the Portuguese-speaking nations, their interrelations, and their interactions with the wider world. A. de Quental, T. de Pascoais, Pessoa, G. Freyre, S. Buarque de Holanda, Vianna Moog, A. Sérgio, E. Lourenço, A. Cabral, and R. DaMatta. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1800C. Constructing Men, Projecting Masculinity: Questioning Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in Brazil.

In this course we will examine how contemporary Brazilian cultural production – particularly literature and cinema – (re)formulates/questions/preserves traditional configurations of male gender identity. We will discuss constructions and representations of the male subject within contemporary cultural production, particularly focusing on the later-half of the twentieth century. More specifically, employing ideas of gender as a form of performance we will question gendered stereotypes and their intersections with race and socio-economic position, destabilize binary gender constructions / understandings, and offer queer readings of a multiplicity of texts. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1800E. The Brazilian Puzzle: Confronting the Post-Colonial Legacy.

Brazilian intellectuals have often attempted to understand and explain the challenges in modern Brazilian society (political, economic, racial, educational) by pondering Brazil's Iberian roots and assessing the legacy of Portuguese colonialism. Manuel Bonfim, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Paulo Prado, Gilberto Freyre, Vianna Moog, Caio Prado, Celso Furtado, Paulo Freire, Oswald the Andrade, Roberto DaMatta. Attention to film, music and the visual arts. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 1800F. The Lusophone World and the Struggle for Modernity.

A study of classical writings from the Portuguese-speaking world dealing with the issue of modernity, focusing particularly on the Counter-Reformation and Baroque paradigms versus the Enlightenment. Portuguese, Brazilian and African writers such as Antero de Quental, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Vianna Moog, Amílcar Cabral and others will be read critically and in a comparative approach. Conducted in Portuguese. Enrollment limited to 40.

POBS 1800H. "Uma cidade pode ser apenas um rio": Lusophone Cities through the Arts.

What comes to mind when you think about Providence? Did you know that New England has the largest Portuguese-speaking community in the US? People reporting some Portuguese ancestry make up almost a half-million residents of the region of southern New England. How do you (and artists) imagine cities, deconstruct and remember them? The arts and the city are historically interrelated, and urban spaces have proved to be a rich and synesthetic subject. This interdisciplinary seminar intersects urban environments and artistic production from the Lusophone world (literature, film, music, photography, and more). We will engage with themes related to language, cultural identity, ethnicity, migration, social, racial and economic inequalities, unhealed wounds of dictatorship and colonialism, urbanization and memory. We will depart from Providence, rendering the Lusophone community visible, and then travel to Portugal, Lusophone Africa, and Brazil through multiple artistic lenses.

POBS 1967L. Politics and Culture Under The Brazilian Military Dictatorship, 1964-1985 (HIST 1967L).

Interested students must register for HIST 1967L.

POBS 1970. Reading and Guided Study.

Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

POBS 1990. Research and Preparation of Honors Projects.

This independent study course is designed for students working on honors projects. Written permission of the concentration advisor (Prof. Sobral) is required. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

POBS 2120B. Practicum in English as a Second Language.

The practicum in ESL is an integrating and culminating experience in the Master's Program in ESL and Cross Cultural Studies. The course provides a review of the theories and concepts related to English as a Second Language. Throughout the course students apply what they have learned about teaching English language learners and reflect on their assessment, planning and implementation of second language teaching through group discussions and seminars. To participate in this course students must have access to ELs in a classroom setting.

POBS 2120C. Cross-Cultural Practices: Children and Families.

This course focuses on child development and family practices from a cross-cultural perspective. Readings give the participants a broad view of the diversity of environments in which children develop physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally. Course participants explore the environment of childhood throughout the world and analyze child-rearing practices in various western and non-western societies. Participants also study and discuss the development and status of various ethno-linguistic groups of children in Rhode Island, and examine the implications for community-school relationships, teaching and learning. This course is taught in English.

POBS 2400. Decolonial Futurities: Submerged Perspectives from and within the Americas.

Anthropocenic exhaustion begs for new/old artistic modes of gathering and collectivity. How can we think, do, create, perform, listen, sense, perceive, and generate future-oriented imaginaries based on the texture of ancient ways? This collaborative humanities course centers perspectives, translations, and mediations from and about the Américas. We seek to decenter the liberal humanism of environmental thinking to present modes of being that emerge from the otherwise of the Américas. This imaginary is pluralistic in its linguistic, racial, ethnic, and gendered imagination. It foregrounds submerged perspectives and unearths subterranean stories that confront legacies of (neo)colonialism, racial capitalism, and extractivist exploitation. Guest participants — with the support of the Brown Arts and Cogut Institutes, Modern Culture and Media, and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies — enliven our study across the U.S., Turtle Island, and Abya Yala (the Indigenous nomenclature for the Américas).

POBS 2450. Exchange Scholar Program.

POBS 2500B. Portuguese Overseas Encounters.

A critical analysis of some classic Portuguese travel writings from the 15th to the 20th century. The readings include Zurara, Camões, Fernão Mendes Pinto, História Trágico-Marítima, Ramalho Ortigão, Raul Brandão, as well as the contemporary Pedro Rosa Mendes. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500E. Portuguese Cultural and National Identity.

A critical reading of some key issues in Portuguese intellectual history regarding Portuguese national identity. Classical authors such as Verney, Antero de Quental, Teixeira de Pascoais, Fernando Pessoa, Antonio Sérgio, and Eduardo Lourenço are read along with contemporary theoretical works on the issue of cultural and national identity. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500F. Tales of the "Sertão".

The reality and mythology of the "sertão" have long been a source of inspiration for Brazilian writers, visual artists, and filmmakers. This seminar considers the transformations of the "sertão" motif since the second half of the nineteenth century. Fiction by José de Alencar, Euclides da Cunha, Graciliano Ramos and João Guimarães Rosa. Films by Glauber Rocha and Sandra Kogut. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500G. Nation and Narration.

The invention and transformation of the idea of Brazil as a nation narrative texts since the middle of the 19th century. Manuel Antônio de Almeida, José de Alencar, Adolfo Caminha, Machado de Assis, Monteiro Lobato, Mário de Andrade, Adalzira Bittencourt, Antônio Callado and João Ubaldo Ribeiro. Theoretical texts by Benedict Anderson, Homi Bhabba, Edward Said, Eric Hobsbawn, Frantz Fanon, Roberto Schwarz and others. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500H. The City and the Street: Tradition, Modernity and Human Subjectivity in Brazilian Urban Literature.

From Machado de Asiss's streetcar chronicles, João do Rio's belle-époque flâneur crônicas, and modernists' views of São Paulo down to the urban paranoia of Rubem Fonseca's crime narratives and the destabilizing subjectivities of contemporary writers, this seminar examines diverse urban bodies and cartographies for understanding spatial and temporal relationships between the city and bodies, sexual cultures, gender roles, violence, peripheries, and metropolitan apocalyptic tensions. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500I. The Portuguese Essay.

Focuses on some key themes of Portuguese social, political and cultural life that have been dealt with in the essay form, in the 19th and 20th century, such as Portugal's decline, modernization, regeneration and national identity. Special attention to literature on the essay as a genre. Readings include Antero de Quental, Oliveira Martins, Silvio Lima, Joaquim de Carvalho, Antonio José Saraiva, Eduardo Lourenço and others. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500K. Senses and Sensibilities in the Nineteenth Century Portuguese Novel.

The works to be read are representative of the main literary trends in 19th century Portuguese literature. They will be analyzed with a focus on literary aesthetics, but also on meanings (or senses), both culturally and personally, by exploring the textual construction of emotions, i.e., the engagement of sensibilities in the written word. Authors to be studied include Almeida Garrett, Camilo Castelo Branco and Eça de Queirós. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2500L. Latin American Historiography (HIST 2971E).

Interested students must register for HIST 2971E.

POBS 2500N. Got Rights? Human Rights and Contemporary Brazilian Literature.

Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos states that nowadays, there is a “global hegemony of human rights as a discourse of human dignity” (2015: 22). Nonetheless, Sousa Santos observes that this hegemony is challenged by a reality of widespread human rights abuses. What then, is the value of human rights and what role does literature play in the discursive construction and the praxis of human rights? This course examines how contemporary Brazilian literature conceptualizes human rights through topics such as authoritarianism, class, race, urban space. The course also establishes connections between human rights in Brazilian and select Spanish American texts.

POBS 2500P. Ways of Belonging in Portuguese Literature.

Based on works by twentieth- and twenty-first century Portuguese authors, this course proposes to explore ways in which Portuguese literature presents itself as a spatial practice that shapes a sense of belonging around certain cultural landscapes. Starting from the idea that environmental perceptions are intertwined with cultural legacies, this course aims to trace a journey through a variety of cultural landscapes that link the present to the past and open space for a critical reflection that brings together local solidarities and transformative worldviews. Readings include authors from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, such as Camilo Castelo Branco, Antero de Quental, Raul Brandão, Miguel Torga, Agustina Bessa-Luís, Eduardo Lourenço, José Mattoso, Maria Filomena Mónica, Miguel Esteves Cardoso, Álvaro Domingues, Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Hugo Gonçalves, and Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. We will also look at music, cinema, and visual arts.

POBS 2500Q. Turning Tides: Change and Crisis in Portuguese and Lusophone African Literature.

We will examine Portuguese-language literary texts from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century guided by the topics of change and crisis at both the individual and collective levels. Using as our springboard the Renaissance theme of change, we will trace a journey through literary texts from Portugal and Portuguese-speaking African countries that deal with issues including: crisis, modernity, colonialism, postcolonialism, political and sociohistorical transitions, decolonization, war, peace and the potential of humanity. The course will follow a thematic structure, rather than adhering to a strictly chronological progression, allowing for a more flexible exploration of key concepts and ideas. Readings include authors and texts from different periods, genders, styles and genres. Throughout the course, we will also look at music and cinema, creating critical dialogues linking the present to the past and envisioning ways of inhabiting the future.

POBS 2600A. Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese Literature.

An analysis of Portuguese literature from the Middle Ages to the 16th century. Special attention given to the poetry of the Cancioneiros, Fernão Lopes, Gil Vicente, and Luís de Camões. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600B. Saramago and His Contemporaries.

Focuses mainly on the "oeuvre" of José Saramago, the recently deceased Portuguese Nobel Prize winner. Four other well-known Portuguese writers (Vergílio Ferreira, Agustina Bessa-Luís, António Lobo Antunes, Lídia Jorge) are also studied as a way of contextualizing Saramago's work but, more importantly, for their own merit as outstanding novelists. Complementary readings will mostly consist of theoretical texts concerning an approach to contemporary novels based on the nexus between history and fiction on the one hand, and the construction of emotions in literature on the other. Conducted in Portuguese. Enrollment limited to 25.

POBS 2600C. Foundations of Literary Theory.

Designed to provide a solid foundation on the development of literary theory from its ancient roots in Plato, Aristotle, Horace and Plotinus to the contemporary period. Includes Kant, the Russian Formalists, Lukács, Jakobson, Bakhtin, Barthes, Derrida, Ricoeur, Said and others. Conducted in English.

POBS 2600D. Brazilian Fictions of the Self.

Focuses on representations of the self as a "supreme fiction" in Brazilian novels since the late 19th. century. Machado de Assis, Raul Pompeia, Raquel de Queiroz, Graciliano Ramos, Clarice Lispector, Lúcio Cardoso, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Raduan Nassar, Sérgio Sant'Anna and João Gilberto Noll. Open to advanced undergraduates with permission from the instructor. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600E. António Lobo Antunes and his contemporaries.

The course aims to offer a knowledge of contemporary Portuguese literature centered around the works of António Lobo Antunes, the most prestigious writer in Portuguese literature today, essential to understand the collective Portuguese memory and the collective experience of the Portuguese people over the last 40 years.
This course is also about other outstanding contemporary authors, in order to make the student aware of other voices of Portuguese literature, especially those from the most recent generation of writers. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600G. Decolonizing Brazil: The Postcolonial Dilemma of "Not Being And Being Other".

Considering the "ambivalent construction of the Brazilian's cultural existence" as the basic stance for reexamining Brazil from a revised postcolonial approach, this seminar will contextualize the Brazilian postcolonial from the viewpoints of diversity, difference, hybridity, and heterogeneity. Authors to be read are Manuel Antônio de Almeida, Machado de Assis, Adolfo Caminha, Oswald de Andrade, Graciliano Ramos, Samuel Rawet, Silviano Santiago, and Lygia Fagundes Telles. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600I. Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Poetry.

An intensive reading of selected Brazilian poets of the past eighty years, including Carlos Drummond de Andrade, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Mário Faustino, Paulo Leminski, Ana Cristina Cesar, the "concretistas", and Salgado Maranhão. Each student will be responsible for an oral presentation about an additional poet, to be chosen in consultation with the instructor. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600J. The "I" of the Beholder: The Autobiographical Mode in Modern Brazilian Fiction.

Analyzes first-person fictional narration and the ethics of self- examination, self-display and self-invention. Examines questions of truth in fiction, the self and the other, autobiographical theory, and the concept of witnessing and reporting in relation to self- representation. Mário de Andrade, Cyro dos Anjos, Antônio Olavo Pereira, Clarice Lispector, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Helena Parente Cunha, Rubem Fonseca, Sérgio Sant'Anna and Bernardo de Carvalho. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600M. The Word in the Dark: Passion, Quest and Identity in the Universe of Clarice Lispector.

This seminar will examine the major novels, short story collections, and crônicas by the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector and analyze the development of her literary voice and her unique use of language. Reading her work through and beyond the existential, feminist and poststructuralist views manifested in the best critical and theoretical analyses of her work, this seminar will focus especially upon her passionate struggle with language as well as her genre-breaking narratives, alongside her ontological quest for narrative subjectivity. Seminar presentations and papers will explore these issues with the aim of understanding Clarice's spiritual and philosophical impulses as well as her original linguistic contribution to Brazilian and World Literatures. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600N. Transgressing Gender: Female Voicing in Modern Brazilian Literature.

This seminar looks at theoretical and critical essays on gender and beyond in relation to the fiction of three major Brazilian female writers: Rachel de Queiroz, Lygia Fagundes Telles, and Clarice Lispector. Discussion addresses issues of gender identity and ambiguity, female voicing, gender politics, alterity, feminist consciousness, as well as power and resistance. Readings include two or more works by each of the three writers. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600O. The Sage of Suspicion: Machado de Assis and the Agencies of Narrative.

Novels and short stories of Machado de Assis within the context of the socio-political reality of nineteenth-century Brazil. Attention to the ideologies of Brazil's ruling class, its self-image and views on national identity, class and race; the issue of fiction vs. reality; and/or such topics as irony, symbolism, and narratology. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600P. Fernando Pessoa and Co.

An analysis of key writings by the major Portuguese Modernist poet Fernando Pessoa, as well as by his more important heteronyms, particularly Alvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and António Mora. The course will emphasize the recurrent themes of identity, divided self, meaning, disquietude, and displacement. Conducted in Portuguese.

POBS 2600W. Contemporary Brazilian Women Writers in the Culture of Money: A Literature of Their Own.

This advanced seminar will study, comment and debate seven contemporary Brazilian novels and two collections of short stories written by women during the last thirty years. Some of the main subjects to be addressed are fear, love, loneliness and exclusion that characterize current turning points for women. The literary works stemming from this kind of environment tend to lead to a labyrinth that maps their characters’ and society’s emotional behavior, thereby transforming meaning and redirecting the pathways of aesthetic form, while modifying the conventions that shed light upon the authors’ construction of their stories.

POBS 2970. Preliminary Examination Preparation.

For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination.

POBS 2980. Reading and Guided Study.

Reading in Portuguese language, literature, civilization, and bilingual studies. Conducted via Portuguese readings and discussions. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

POBS 2990. Thesis Preparation.

For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are continuing research on a full time basis.