"Tutto è italiano": Gina Lombroso Ferrero, Travel Writing, and the Making of an Italian Empire in São Paulo (original) (raw)
Related papers
Navigating Between Italianità and Brasilidade: The Case of Menotti del Picchia
LITERATURA E (I)MIGRAÇÃO NO BRASIL / LITERATURE AND (IM)MIGRATION IN BRAZIL edited by Waïl Hassan and Rogério Lima, 2020
This essay investigates the way in which Paulo Menotti del Picchia, author of the famous poem “Juca Mulato” and an important intellectual and political figure in Brazil during the 20th century, reimagines the role of Italians in Brazil. Through an analysis of “Juca Mulato,” from the chronicles signed by him in Correio Paulistano and the autobiography A Longa viagem, this essay discusses how Menotti del Picchia claims his Italian identity and the experiences associated with it, giving Italians a privileged space in the foundation of the modern Brazilian nation. For Menotti del Picchia, Italians were superior to other ethnic groups that also arrived in Brazil at the end of the 19th century because, paradoxically, they could be more easily assimilated. In this sense, Menotti del Picchia tries to reconcile his double identity: the Italian, more linked to family affections, especially to the father figure; and the Brazilian, which had dominated his public and political figure. The essay shows how Italianness and Brazilianness are deeply related in the political and literary imagery of Menotti del Picchia: it is his affections for the family and the markedly Italian experiences associated with this that gave him the ability to become one of the most direct defenders of an authentic and nationalist Brazil.
Revising Brazil’s history in “Visitação” by António Franco Alexandre
Abstract submitted for ‘VI International Conference of ABIL’ University of Exeter, 7-8 September 2015, Exeter, UK Manuela Moreira Graduate Student - Faculty of Arts – University of Porto, Portugal Revising Brazil’s history in “Visitação” by António Franco Alexandre My paper aims to illustrate how António Franco Alexandre’s poetry, which is often perceived as deprived of meaning, can actually convey a wide range of meanings. For example, in a long poem called “Visitação”, based on an actual tour by the Portuguese poet to and through Brazil, one is left with a sense of unease whilst reading the poem. However, the allusions found in its fragments offer the possibility of engaging in a reading which puts together the pieces, thus enabling the reader to build a story that subverts the history of Brazil, as narrated by the Portuguese. Hence, the reader embarks on a journey which unveils the history of Brazil’s colonization, by foregrounding the plight of the people who suffered at the hands of the colonizer. Furthermore, the speaker pays tribute to Brazilian literature and language variety. As a matter of fact, the originality of this poem lies in reading Brazil’s history through the lens of postcolonial studies, despite its authorial voice being located in the space of the former colonial power.
The Hidden Beginnings of a Breakthrough: Lina Bo Bardi's First Steps in Brazil
RIHA Journal, 2022
Italian-born architect Lina Bo Bardi always claimed that she had moved to Brazil in the aftermath of World War II because the freedom ideals of the Italian Resistance had been betrayed. Recent studies argue she was merely accompanying her husband, Pietro Maria Bardi, who was organizing art exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro. However, as documented by the correspondence published here for the first time, Bo Bardi did not embark on the journey to the New World because of the failures of the Italian Resistance or simply as a companion to her husband: she had been charged with the task of ensuring Brazil's participation in the eighth edition of the Triennale di Milano (1947). On the basis of the correspondence documenting this assignment, this essay fills a historiographic gap and, more importantly, aims to radically revise the narrative around the initial phase of Bo Bardi's stay in Brazil, the country she increasingly felt as her own and where she eventually spent her entire life.
Italian Studies, 2024
This article examines Giulia Caminito's novel La grande A (2016) to show how descriptions of colonial subjects and spaces rely on stereotypes and exoticisations derived from colonial discourse. By analysing formal aspects and the intertextual relationship with Mario Tobino's Il deserto della Libia (1952), the article underscores continuity in terms of modes of representation between La grande A and its main sourcetext, suggesting a lack of interactions or connections with the transnational African/Italian authors who have confronted the legacy of Italy's colonial past. In a mainly white European figurative framework, the novel marginalises and forecloses Black/African subjects while, at the same time, providing readers with orientalist descriptions of the former colonies. Although the novel addresses a frequently overlooked topic in Italian literature, namely colonialism and women's experiences in the overseas territories, it also problematically reproduces stereotypes about Africa/Africans rather than effectively exposing and debunking them.