LAS 221 - Afro-Brazilian Culture and History

Brazil has the largest population of people of African descent outside of Africa. This course will employ an interdisciplinary approach to understand the historical and sociocultural experiences of people of the African diaspora in Brazil. Once heralded internationally as a “racial democracy” or racial paradise due to centuries of racial mixture and national narratives of mestiçagem, Brazil has been the subject of an ongoing critical re-evaluation that has revealed quite a disparity between the national ideal and the social reality. In this course, we will critically engage with these paradoxical discourses and realities, as well as with the histories, ideas, and movements that address and expand our notions of politics, pleasure, and autonomy. This course addresses these questions by focusing on a wide range of themes including social movements, popular music, religion, the arts, and culinary traditions. We will collaboratively read, view, and listen to a variety of sources and literature in order to analyze and write about blackness, Afro-Brazilian cultural expression, and the everyday lives of Black people in Brazil.

Satisfies Africana Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Latin American Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.