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Week 13: National Identity: Samba, Football, and “Racial Democracy”

Lecture powerpoint

Seminar Questions

  • In what ways did Brazilian national identity develop from about the 1930s?
  • What contradictions emerged?
  • Was it a top-down or a bottom-up process?
  • Was Brazilian society more racist or less racist by the end of the Vargas era?

Seminar Reading

•Leonardo Pereira, “Domingos da Guia,” in The Human Tradition, pp 147-64 [extract contains Domingos chapter along with others]

•Bryan McCann, “Geraldo Pereira: Samba Composer,” [part 1] and Geraldo Pereira, Part 2 in Beattie, ed., The Human Tradition, 127-46

•Jeffrey Lesser, “Immigration and Shifting Concepts of National Identity in Brazil during the Vargas Era,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 31-2 (1994): 23-44

•Daryle Williams, “Ad perpetuam rei memoriam: The Vargas Regime and Brazil’s National Historical Patrimony, 1930-1945,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 31-2 (1994):45-75

•Robert Levine, “Sport and Society: The Case of Brazilian Futebol,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 17:2 (1980), 233-255

Further reading: recent works on futebol, working-class culture and internal migration:

Paulo Fontes, Migration and the Making of Industrial Sao Paulo, trans. Ned Sublette, forward by Barbara Weinstein. Duke University Press, 2016 [e-book at Library]
Paulo Fontes and Bernardo Buarque de Holanda, The Country of Football: Politics, Culture and the Beautiful Game in Brazil. 2014 [two copies in library]