Teaching American Studies in Brazilian Universities: Johannes Factotum Or Janus?

Year 1999, Issue: 10, 69 - 79, 01.10.1999

Cristina M. T. Stevens

Abstract

“North American Culture and Institutions” courses, as they are called, have been taught in Brazil since the early 1980s. At the University of Brasilia where I teach, these courses have been offered since 1980 and are compulsory courses for the students of the Translation Department. They are designed to give support to English Language and Literature courses but look beyond language and literature by providing students with cultural awareness, an important component of the process of acquisition of the language they are learning to translate. They were and to a large degree still are taught in the so-called “life and civilization” fashion; i.e., as the study of North American history and institutions. Similar courses are taught at the graduate level, forming part of the M.A. programme in English.

References

• Adorno, Theodor W. Prismen: Kulturkritik and Gesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1955. Prisms. Trans. Samuel and Shierry Weber. London: Spearman, 1967.
• Althusser, Louis. Essays on Ideology. Trans. Ben Brewster and Grahame Lock. London: Verso, 1984.
• Bellei, Sergio. “Brazilian Culture in the Frontier.” Bulletin of Latin American Research. 14.1 (1995): 47-61.
• Benjamin, Walter. Magia e Técnica, Arte e Política: Ensaios Sobre Literatura e História da Cultura. Trans. Sergio Paulo Rouanet. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1985.
• Bennet, Tonny. Outside Literature. London: Routledge, 1990.
• Bosi, Alfredo. Reflexões Sobre a Arte. São Paulo: Ática, 1986.
• Césaire, Aimé. Discours sur le Colonialisme. Paris: Réclame, 1950. Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972.
• Desmond, Jane C. and Virginia R. Dominguez, “Resituating American Studies in a Critical Internationalism.” American Quarterly. 48.3(1996): 475-490.
• Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillian, 1916.
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” The American Tradition in Literature. Eds. Sculley Bradley et al. 1956. Vol. I. Fourth edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1974. 1107-1128.
• Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 1999.
• Fanon, Frantz. Peau Noire, Masques Blancs. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1952. Black Skins, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto Press, 1986.
• Foucault, Michel. Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la Folie à l’Âge Classique. Paris: 1961. Madness and Civilization. A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Vintage, 1973.
• Graff, Gerald and Reginald Gibbons, eds. Criticism in the University. Tri Quarterly Series on Criticism and Culture. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1985.
• Gramsci, Antonio. Lettere dal Carcere. Torino: G. Eunadi, 1947. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Trans. and eds. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International, 1971.
• Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies.” Cultural Studies. Eds. Lawrence Grossberg et al. London: Routledge, 1992. 277-294.
• Hoggart, Richard. Contemporary Cultural Studies. An Approach to the Study of Literature and Society. Birmingham: Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1969.
• Hollanda, Sergio Buarque de. Raízes do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: José Olimpio, 1978. Joyce, James. Ulysses. 1922. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.
• Lauter, Paul. “Versions of Nashville, Visions of American Studies.” American Quarterly. 47.2 (1995): 185-203.
• Lentricchia, Frank. “On Behalf of Theory.” Criticism in the University. Tri quaterly series on Criticism and Culture. Eds. Gerald Graff and Reginald Gibbons. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1985. 105-110.
• Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964.
• Panorama Atual dos Estudos Americanos na Argentina, Mexico e Brasil. Relatorio da Associaçao Brasileira de Estudos Americanos. PUC-Rio, Nov., 1993. 2
• Pêcheaux, Michel. Language, Semantics, and Ideology: Stating the Obvious. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982.
• Portela, Eduardo. Literatura e Realidade Nacional. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1963.
• Riedel, Wolfgang. “Cultural Studies. Positions and Oppositions.” Journal for the Study of British Culture. University of Leipzig, 2.1(1995):. 61-73.
• Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. 1993. London: Vintage Books, 1994.
• Santiago, Silviano. Uma Literatura nos Trópicos. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1978.
• Schwarz, Roberto. Que horas são? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1987. Misplaced Ideas. Essays on Brazilian Culture. London and New York: Verso, 1992.
• Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.