Race in Brazil: Blackness & Whiteness

This course aims to analyze blackness and whiteness as polar and relational concepts. We take Brazil - which received approximately 40% of the African labor force kidnapped during the slave trade - era as a paradigmatic case. We examine how blackness & whiteness have shaped each other and Brazil's cultural, social, and political landscape from an interdisciplinary perspective. Works of literature, visual arts, sociology, and anthropology are part of the course program. We also use a comparative perspective, highlighting examples from Lusophone Africa, and theoretical works from the Global South and North in dialogue with Brazil.