Brazilian Historiography through Brazili

This graduate-level course examines the study of Brazilian history from the first contact between the Portuguese colonizers and the region’s Indigenous inhabitants to the present, in its hemispheric, Atlantic, and global contexts.  We will be reading works of history that were produced by authors who themselves are from Brazil, giving us the chance to reflect on the formation of Brazil’s immensely rich, distinctive historiographical traditions. Throughout the semester, we will be reading and discussing scholarship that familiarizes students with major themes in the study of Brazilian history and the country’s intellectual traditions and mutual influences in other parts of the world; this scholarship also raises questions, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, about what it means to examine a nation’s past, and about what distinguishes the postcolonial period from earlier moments (and what calls such conventional watersheds as independence and other political transitions into question). Our readings and in-class discussions broadly survey the entire sweep of Brazilian history. We will, however, take advantage of the recent florescence and global influence of Brazilian historiography in such subfields as: the study of slavery and post-abolition society; innovative approaches to labor history; studies of authoritarianism and dictatorship; nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberalisms; citizenship and exclusion; human rights and justice; divided cities and urban shantytowns; and the critical study of historical memory and patrimony. Over the course of the semester, our coursework will be accompanied by a series of optional academic and cultural events related to Brazilian history on our campus at Columbia and in the New York City area.

This course is primarily designed for doctoral students, but those enrolled in MA programs or in the professional schools may register with the instructor’s permission. All required readings will be in English, and there are no prerequisites.