The Carnivalesque Defunto

The Carnivalesque Defunto PDF Author: Robert Henry Moser
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0896802582
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The Carnivalesque Defunto explores the representations of death and the dead in Brazil’s collective and literary imagination. The recurring stereotype of Brazil as the land of samba, soccer, and sandy beaches overlooks a more complex cultural heritage in which, since colonial times, a relationship of proximity and reciprocity has been cultivated between the living and the dead. Robert H. Moser details the emergence of a prominent motif in modern Brazilian literature, namely the carnivalesque defunto (the dead) that, in the form of a protagonist or narrator, returns to beseech, instruct, chastise, or even seduce the living. Drawing upon the works of esteemed Brazilian writers such as Machado de Assis, Érico Veríssimo, and Jorge Amado, Moser demonstrates how the defunto, through its mocking laughter and Dionysian resurrection, simultaneously subverts and inverts the status quo, thereby exposing underlying points of tension within Brazilian social and political history. Incorporating elements of both a celestial advocate and an untrustworthy specter, the defunto also serves as a metaphor for one of modern Brazil’s greatest dilemmas: reconciling the past with the present. The Carnivalesque Defunto offers a comparative framework by juxtaposing the Brazilian literary ghost with other Latin American, Caribbean, and North American examples. It also presents a cross-disciplinary approach toward understanding the complex relationship forged between Brazil’s spiritual traditions and literary expressions.

The Carnivalesque Defunto

The Carnivalesque Defunto PDF Author: Robert Henry Moser
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0896802582
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Carnivalesque Defunto explores the representations of death and the dead in Brazil’s collective and literary imagination. The recurring stereotype of Brazil as the land of samba, soccer, and sandy beaches overlooks a more complex cultural heritage in which, since colonial times, a relationship of proximity and reciprocity has been cultivated between the living and the dead. Robert H. Moser details the emergence of a prominent motif in modern Brazilian literature, namely the carnivalesque defunto (the dead) that, in the form of a protagonist or narrator, returns to beseech, instruct, chastise, or even seduce the living. Drawing upon the works of esteemed Brazilian writers such as Machado de Assis, Érico Veríssimo, and Jorge Amado, Moser demonstrates how the defunto, through its mocking laughter and Dionysian resurrection, simultaneously subverts and inverts the status quo, thereby exposing underlying points of tension within Brazilian social and political history. Incorporating elements of both a celestial advocate and an untrustworthy specter, the defunto also serves as a metaphor for one of modern Brazil’s greatest dilemmas: reconciling the past with the present. The Carnivalesque Defunto offers a comparative framework by juxtaposing the Brazilian literary ghost with other Latin American, Caribbean, and North American examples. It also presents a cross-disciplinary approach toward understanding the complex relationship forged between Brazil’s spiritual traditions and literary expressions.

Images of the Corpse

Images of the Corpse PDF Author: Elizabeth Klaver
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780299197940
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This compelling book brings together physicians, artists, and scholars of film, literature, philosophy, art, and politics to discuss the representation of the corpse in Western culture. Spanning a timeline from the Renaissance to the present, these essays introduce readers to a modern autopsy, a public execution and dissection in seventeenth-century England, the genre of postmortem photography, the corpse as artist's model, images of dead women in such popular films as Copycat and The Silence of the Lambs, and post-mortem scenes in the works of Flaubert, Balzac, Andres Serrano, and others.

Theater State and the Formation of Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran

Theater State and the Formation of Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran PDF Author: Babak Rahimi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004209794
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
This first systematic study of a wide range of Persian and European archival and primary sources, analyzes how the Muharram rituals changed from being an orginally devotional practice to public events of political significance, setting the stage for the emergence of the early modern Iranian public sphere in the Safavid period.

Death

Death PDF Author: Mario Erasmo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755698258
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Personal and yet utterly universal, inevitable and yet unknowable, death has been a dominant theme in all cultures, since earliest times. Different societies address death and the act of dying in culturally diverse ways; yet, remarkably, across the span of several millennia, we can recognize in the customs of ancient Greece and Rome ceremonies and rituals that have enduring present-day resonance. For example, preparing the corpse of the deceased, holding a memorial service, the practice of cremation and of burial in 'resting places' are all liminal processes that can trace their origin to ancient practices. Such rites - described by Cicero and Herodotus, among others - have defined traditional modern funerals. Yet of late there has been a shift away from classical ritual and sombre memorialization as the dead are transformed into spectacles. Ad hoc roadside shrines, 'virtual' burials, online guest-books and even jazz memorial processions and firework displays have come to the fore as new modes of marking, even celebrating, bereavement. What is causing this change, and how do urbanisation, economic factors and the rise of individualism play a part? Mario Erasmo creatively explores the nexus between classical and contemporary approaches to dying, death and interment. From theme funerals in St Louis to Etruscan sarcophagi, he offers a rich and insightful discussion of finitude across the ages.

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende PDF Author: Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786471271
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Isabel Allende--"la Famosa" to her fellow Chileans--is the world's most widely read Spanish language author. Her career coincides with the emergence of multiculturalism and global feminism, and her powerfully honest, revelatory works touch the pulse points of humankind. Her bravura study of the interwoven roles of women in family history opens the minds of outsiders to the sufferings of women and their children during years of social and political nightmare. This reference work provides an introduction to Allende's life as well as a guided overview of her body of work. Designed for the fan and scholar alike, this text features an alphabetized, fully-annotated listing of major terms in the Allende canon, including fictional characters, motifs, historical events and themes. A comprehensive index is included.

Transnational Faiths

Transnational Faiths PDF Author: Hugo Córdova Quero
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317006933
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Japan has witnessed the arrival of thousands of immigrants, since the 1990s, from Latin America, especially from Brazil and Peru. Along with immigrants from other parts of the world, they all express the new face of Japan - one of multiculturality and multi-ethnicity. Newcomers are having a strong impact in local faith communities and playing an unexpected role in the development of communities. This book focuses on the role that faith and religious institutions play in the migrants' process of settlement and integration. The authors also focus on the impact of immigrants' religiosity amidst religious groups formerly established in Japan. Religion is an integral aspect of the displacement and settlement process of immigrants in an increasing multi-ethnic, multicultural and pluri-religious contemporary Japan. Religious institutions and their social networks in Japan are becoming the first point of contact among immigrants. This book exposes and explores the often missed connection of the positive role of religion and faith-based communities in facilitating varied integrative ways of belonging for immigrants. The authors highlight the faith experiences of immigrants themselves by bringing their voices through case studies, interviews, and ethnographic research throughout the book to offer an important contribution to the exploration of multiculturalism in Japan.

Reasoning Against Madness

Reasoning Against Madness PDF Author: Manuella Meyer
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1580465781
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Examines the emergence of Brazilian psychiatry during a period of national regeneration, demonstrating how sociopolitical negotiations can shape psychiatric professionalization

The Routledge Handbook of Death and the Afterlife

The Routledge Handbook of Death and the Afterlife PDF Author: Candi K. Cann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113481741X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
This Handbook traces the history of the changing notion of what it means to die and examines the many constructions of afterlife in literature, text, ritual, and material culture throughout time. The Routledge Handbook of Death and the Afterlife is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising twenty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into three parts and covers the following important themes: The study of dying, death, and grief Disposal of the dead: past, present, and future Representations of death: narratives and rhetoric Youth meets death: a juxtaposition Questionable deaths and afterlives: suicide, ghosts, and avatars Material corpses and imagined afterlives around the world Within these sections, central issues, debates, and problems are examined, including: the world of death and dying from various cultural viewpoints and timeframes, cultural and social constructions of the definition of death, disposal practices, and views of the afterlife. The Routledge Handbook of Death and the Afterlife is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.

Revolutions Aesthetic

Revolutions Aesthetic PDF Author: Max Weiss
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503631966
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
The November 1970 coup that brought Hafiz al-Asad to power fundamentally transformed cultural production in Syria. A comprehensive intellectual, ideological, and political project—a Ba'thist cultural revolution—sought to align artistic endeavors with the ideological interests of the regime. The ensuing agonistic struggle pitted official aesthetics of power against alternative modes of creative expression that could evade or ignore the effects of the state. With this book, Max Weiss offers the first cultural and intellectual history of Ba'thist Syria, from the coming to power of Hafiz al-Asad, through the transitional period under Bashar al-Asad, and continuing up through the Syria War. Revolutions Aesthetic reconceptualizes contemporary Syrian politics, authoritarianism, and cultural life. Engaging rich original sources—novels, films, and cultural periodicals—Weiss highlights themes crucial to the making of contemporary Syria: heroism and leadership, gender and power, comedy and ideology, surveillance and the senses, witnessing and temporality, and death and the imagination. Revolutions Aesthetic places front and center the struggle around aesthetic ideology that has been key to the constitution of state, society, and culture in Syria over the course of the past fifty years.

Historical Dictionary of Latin American Literature and Theater

Historical Dictionary of Latin American Literature and Theater PDF Author: Richard Young
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810874989
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 749

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Book Description
The Historical Dictionary of Latin American Literature and Theater provides users with an accessible single-volume reference tool covering Portuguese-speaking Brazil and the 16 Spanish-speaking countries of continental Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela). Entries for authors, ranging from the early colonial period to the present, give succinct biographical data and an account of the author's literary production, with particular attention to their most prominent works and where they belong in literary history. The introduction provides a review of Latin American literature and theater as a whole while separate dictionary entries for each country offer insight into the history of national literatures. Entries for literary terms, movements, and genres serve to complement these commentaries, and an extensive bibliography points the way for further reading. The comprehensive view and detailed information obtained from all these elements will make this book of use to the general-interest reader, Latin American studies students, and the academic specialist.