1st Edition
Literature Beyond the Human Post-Anthropocentric Brazil
How can Clarice Lispector’s writings help us make sense of the Anthropocene? How does race intersect with the treatment of animals in the works of Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis? What can Indigenous philosopher and leader Ailton Krenak teach us about the relationship between environmental degradation and the production of knowledge? Literature Beyond the Human is the first collection of essays in English dedicated to an investigation of Brazilian literature from the viewpoint of the environmental humanities, animal studies, Anthropocene studies, and other critical and theoretical perspectives that question the centrality of the human. This volume includes 15 chapters by leading scholars covering two centuries of Brazilian literary production, from Gonçalves Dias to Astrid Cabral, from Euclides da Cunha to Davi Kopenawa, and others. By underscoring the vast theoretical potential of Brazilian literature and thought, from the influential Modernist thesis of “cultural cannibalism” (antropofagia) to the renewed interest in Amerindian perspectivism in culture. Post-Anthropocentric Brazil shows how the theoretical strength of Brazilian thought can contribute to contemporary debates in the anglophone realm.
Introduction: Post-Anthropocentric Brazil
PART I
Multiple Natures
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, "Nature as Nation"
Rex P. Nielson, "‘Filhos do mesmo solo’: Euclides da Cunha’s Environmental Imagination
Javier Uriarte, "Capital, Bodies, and the Environment in Alberto Rangel’s Stories"
Raúl Antelo, "Cannibal Politics: From the Anthropophagic to the Anthropoemic"
Malcolm K. McNee, "The Pluriversed Landscapes of Josely Vianna Baptista: From Ecopoetry to Environmental Humanities"
PART II
Anthropoethnocentrism and the Animal Gaze
Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond, "A Pale Shade of Violet: Animals and Race in Machado de Assis"
Maria Esther Maciel, "Shared Life: The Zoopoetics of Carlos Drummond de Andrade"
Ettore Finazzi-Agrò, "The Nature and/of the Animal: Environment and World in the Work of João Guimarães Rosa"
Sérgio Medeiros, "Listening to the Jaguar and the Tapir: An Outline of a Wild Pedagogy"
Patrícia Vieira, "Food Ethics in the Work of Astrid Cabral"
PART III
Present Crises and the Anthropocene
Bruno Carvalho, "The Future as a Necessity: Reading Clarice Lispector in the Anthropocene"
Odile Cisneros, "The Poetry of Garbage in Contemporary Brazilian Culture"
Mark Anderson, "False Gifts and Epidemic Fumes: Extractivism’s Traces and Cosmopolitical Resistances in Davi Kopenawa Yanomami’s The Falling Sky"
PART IV
Closing Contribution
Ailton Krenak, "Thinking With Your Head on Earth"
(Curated by Jamille Pinheiro Dias)
Biography
Luca Bacchini is Assistant Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Literature at the Sapienza University of Rome. He is the editor of Maestro Soberano: Ensaios sobre Antonio Carlos Jobim (2017), and the author of Nudi come Adamo: L’immaginario biblico nelle cronache dal Nuovo Mondo (2018).
Victoria Saramago is Assistant Professor of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Fictional Environments: Mimesis, Deforestation, and Development in Latin America (2021).
