Brazilian Literature: Contemporary Urban Fiction

FAIN: FS-50211-09

Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ 85281-3670)
David W. Foster (Project Director: March 2009 to June 2011)

Funding details:
Original grant (2009) $131,219.00
Supplement (2010) $7,300.00

A four-week college and university faculty member seminar for sixteen participants on twentieth-century urban Brazilian fiction, to be held in São Paulo, Brazil.

The seminar focuses on five major works of Brazilian fiction from the twentieth century. Through a detailed examination of these works as literary texts that interpret the urban experience in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Curitiba, and Porto Alegre, the seminar will provide participants with a grounding in Brazilian literature. Participants will be college and university professors of Latin American studies, some with a familiarity with Brazil. The latter will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Brazilian literature, while other participants will receive a solid introduction to Brazilian culture through major literary texts. Portuguese remains a critical language in the U.S., and both the seminar proper and the language workshop, an auxiliary part of the program, will contribute toward addressing the critical lack of trained scholars in the field. The seminar will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, between June 22 and July 17, 2009.