Spring 2011

Empire to Integration:  Cultural Dimensions of Portuguese Globalism PRT 3930 (3490) 
Special Topics in Lusophone Culture and Civilization (in Translation)  Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies

from the prospectus:  " ... Materials consider the national in relation to the international, European and global alike, as well as the condition of women and/or gender configurations, in a broad sense involving fictional point of view, female authorship, literal themes, figurative representations and mythical currents, relationships, patriarchal aspects, consciousness-raising, and political transformations."  
See tentative syllabus, section four:  i.e. Sample critical articles  (especially for cross list).

ATT: cross list with WST 3930 (6261) Special Interdisciplinary Topics in Women's Studies
Here are several (scroll down) links,  images, and bibliographical suggestions to give an idea of relevant content:



     


Related themes emerge in Early Troubadour Poetry based on female speakers-personae.  Sample study: "Three Faces of Eve: Images of the Feminine in Medieval Galician-Portuguese Poetry" King's College, London

       

One of the most celebrated affairs in European history yielded an epoch-making book in the XVIIth century:





which is the point of departure for a revolutionary book of the latter XXth century:

International Writing by Women/Europe/Travel:  The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters
By Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta,  and Maria Velho da Costa
Required textbook. Sample at:  http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~readers/newportpage.htm

This tour de force of modern women's literature is the product of a creative alliance of  three Portuguese writers: all feminists, all mothers, all named Maria, who take as their inspiration the seventeenth-century European classic Letters of a Portuguese Nun. These modern Marias weave tales, poems and meditations around the myths and reality of contemporary women's lives. New Portuguese Letters, which caused its authors' arrest and trial on obscenity charges when it first appeared in 1974, had a profound influence on the Women's Liberation Movement and remains just as fresh and challenging today.

Katherine Vaz, Lecturer in creative writing at Harvard University / Associate Professor of English UC Davis , is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Saudade (St. Martin’s Press, 1994). Her second novel, Mariana , has been printed in six languages. Library of Congress picked it as one of the Top 30 International Books of 1998.

 mariana  fado

Her collection Fado & Other Stories won the 1997 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Vaz is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and is the first Portuguese-American to have her work recorded for the Library of Congress, housed in the Hispanic Division alongside recordings made by Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Gabriela Mistral, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

FADO-- the song form made famous by Amália Rodrigues--  has experienced a global revival since the 1990s with vocalists such as Mariza and Misia, who have toured the US (including UF).  Cesária Evora has both led both a vogue of Afro-Portuguese "World Music"and advocated for gender equality, personal freedom, and racial justice.
     


Inquiries:  perrone@ufl.edu