This article contributes to the Archival Turn in literary studies with a meta-analysis of the res... more This article contributes to the Archival Turn in literary studies with a meta-analysis of the research process that resulted in the book Latino-Americanizando o Brasil: Literary criticism and transnational dialogue. Developed in archives located in Montevideo, Caracas, São Paulo, and Princeton, the research process allowed me to retrace the exchange routes between Brazilians and Hispanic American authors dedicated to a greater approximation of their countries' cultural and intellectual production. Using a selfreflective and analytical approach, I trace the development of my research, highlighting the questions that led me to the investigation of primary materials, the methodology I employed, and the configuration of the archives I researched. Based on this analysis, I explore some of the implications, possibilities, and limits of archival work in literary and cultural studies. Palavras-chave: Arquivos; América Latina; Virada Arquivística Resumo Este artigo busca contribuir com a Virada Arquivística no terreno dos estudos literários a partir de uma meta-análise do processo de pesquisa levado à cabo para a elaboração do livro Latino-americanizando o Brasil: A crítica literária e o diálogo transnacional. Desenvolvida em arquivos localizados em Montevideo, Caracas, São Paulo e Princeton, a investigação para o livro permitiu-me retraçar as rotas de intercâmbio entre brasileiros e hispano-americanos dedicados à uma maior aproximação entre a produção cultural e intelectual dos seus países. Utilizando uma abordagem auto reflexiva e analítica, procuro traçar um histórico de minha pesquisa, sublinhando as perguntas que me levaram à busca por materiais primários, a metodologia de trabalho empregada e a configuração dos arquivos investigados. A partir dessas reflexões fincadas na experiência concreta da pesquisa, busco, então, explorar alguns dos sentidos, limites e possibilidades dos arquivos no campo dos estudos literários e culturais.
This article examines the relationship between the magazines Cadernos Brasileiros (1959-1970) and... more This article examines the relationship between the magazines Cadernos Brasileiros (1959-1970) and Mundo Nuevo (1967-1971) in the 1960s and 70s. During this time, they formed a system of cooperation involving the exchange of articles and information, and the elaboration of joint issues. These colaborations were facilitated by their affiliation to the ILARI (Instituto Latinoamericano de Relaciones Internacionales), a cultural institution secretly financed by the CIA and created to support the spread of US values during the Cold War. In this piece, I discuss processes of South-South exchange by examining the triangulation of Brazilian and Spanish American cultural relations, which in the case studied, relied on material and logistical support of the United States. I demonstrate that, if on the one hand this support undermined the credibility of these magazines in an ideologically polarized world, on the other hand, their editors and writers used the opportunities created by the cultural battle waged during the Cold War to advance their own agenda of literary internationalization and Latin America cultural unification.
World literature has re-emerged recently as central to reflections on the state of comparative li... more World literature has re-emerged recently as central to reflections on the state of comparative literature as a discipline. In these debates, perspectives from the Lusophone world are often marginalized, ignored, or forgotten, despite the fact that the place of these countries and their literatures in a world sphere has been a subject of critical analysis since at least the 1960s. As Antonio Candido pointed out, the study of Brazilian literature is inextricable from examining its relationships to other literary traditions. The concept of world literature has continued to invigorate and problematize studies of the production, circulation, translation, and reception of Luso-Afro-Brazilian literary works. By considering how social, political, and economic power dynamics influence linguistic, literary, and cultural exchanges, Roberto Schwarz, Silviano Santiago, and Paulo de Medeiros, among others, have proposed interventions into debates on World Literature from a Luso-Afro-Brazilian perspective. Schwarz's concept of "misplaced ideas" has been recuperated in Franco Moretti's discussion of international literary exchange. Santiago's study of Joaquim Nabuco's cosmopolitanism as an attraction for the world informs Mariano Siskind's conceptualization of a Latin American "desire for the world." As part of the Warwick Research Collective, Medeiros has contributed examples from Portugal and its former colonies in Africa to the group's definition of world literature as the literature of the modern capitalist world-system and, thus, combined and uneven. These critics exemplify how scholars from Brazil, Portugal, and other countries with Portuguese as an official or commonly spoken language, as well as those studying these literatures and cultures, offer original approaches to world
This article addresses circulation and exchange in the Global South by examining the case of Bibl... more This article addresses circulation and exchange in the Global South by examining the case of Biblioteca Ayacucho (1973), a transnational collection of over 500 books from several Latin American countries. Conceived as an “instrument for Latin American integration,” Ayachucho sought to connect the region by assembling and disseminating its diverse cultural and intellectual traditions. I discuss Ayacucho’s strategies of transnationalization which, in addition to book publishing, also relied on networks of intellectual collaboration and exchange. Focusing on its Brazilian titles, I argue that Ayacucho articulates a model of world literature that employs a contextually grounded yet transnationally based framework. By engaging Latin American specialists and relying on local scholarship, Ayacucho offers an inclusive model of world literature that allies both distant and close reading in the construction of a transnational literature. As such, it defies established assumptions about litera...
Before his death in 2003, Brazilian poet, critic and translator Haroldo de Campos had produced a ... more Before his death in 2003, Brazilian poet, critic and translator Haroldo de Campos had produced a robust body of work on translation theory, which consistently addressed the problem of subordination of target literatures to their source. His audacious concept of ‘transcreation’ championed that translation should be a creative re-invention instead of a mere reproduction of texts. In this article I demonstrate that De Campos’s translation theory subverts the hierarchical categories and values that have structured the field of world literature. Positioning himself as an intellectual from an ‘ex-centric’ literary culture, situated outside of the centers of global circulation, De Campos critiqued the unequal weight usually assigned to translated and original texts, author and translator, established and ascending traditions. His theory effectively illustrates how power differentials between diverse literary contexts affect the ways in which world literature is conceived. I argue that De Campos’s response to the standing inequality that characterizes translational exchanges involved a literary solution. As a creative act in its own right, imbued with the values of originality and difference, transcreation offered an aesthetic answer to the problems of authenticity, influence and literary dependence.
This article contributes to the Archival Turn in literary studies with a meta-analysis of the res... more This article contributes to the Archival Turn in literary studies with a meta-analysis of the research process that resulted in the book Latino-Americanizando o Brasil: Literary criticism and transnational dialogue. Developed in archives located in Montevideo, Caracas, São Paulo, and Princeton, the research process allowed me to retrace the exchange routes between Brazilians and Hispanic American authors dedicated to a greater approximation of their countries' cultural and intellectual production. Using a selfreflective and analytical approach, I trace the development of my research, highlighting the questions that led me to the investigation of primary materials, the methodology I employed, and the configuration of the archives I researched. Based on this analysis, I explore some of the implications, possibilities, and limits of archival work in literary and cultural studies. Palavras-chave: Arquivos; América Latina; Virada Arquivística Resumo Este artigo busca contribuir com a Virada Arquivística no terreno dos estudos literários a partir de uma meta-análise do processo de pesquisa levado à cabo para a elaboração do livro Latino-americanizando o Brasil: A crítica literária e o diálogo transnacional. Desenvolvida em arquivos localizados em Montevideo, Caracas, São Paulo e Princeton, a investigação para o livro permitiu-me retraçar as rotas de intercâmbio entre brasileiros e hispano-americanos dedicados à uma maior aproximação entre a produção cultural e intelectual dos seus países. Utilizando uma abordagem auto reflexiva e analítica, procuro traçar um histórico de minha pesquisa, sublinhando as perguntas que me levaram à busca por materiais primários, a metodologia de trabalho empregada e a configuração dos arquivos investigados. A partir dessas reflexões fincadas na experiência concreta da pesquisa, busco, então, explorar alguns dos sentidos, limites e possibilidades dos arquivos no campo dos estudos literários e culturais.
This article examines the relationship between the magazines Cadernos Brasileiros (1959-1970) and... more This article examines the relationship between the magazines Cadernos Brasileiros (1959-1970) and Mundo Nuevo (1967-1971) in the 1960s and 70s. During this time, they formed a system of cooperation involving the exchange of articles and information, and the elaboration of joint issues. These colaborations were facilitated by their affiliation to the ILARI (Instituto Latinoamericano de Relaciones Internacionales), a cultural institution secretly financed by the CIA and created to support the spread of US values during the Cold War. In this piece, I discuss processes of South-South exchange by examining the triangulation of Brazilian and Spanish American cultural relations, which in the case studied, relied on material and logistical support of the United States. I demonstrate that, if on the one hand this support undermined the credibility of these magazines in an ideologically polarized world, on the other hand, their editors and writers used the opportunities created by the cultural battle waged during the Cold War to advance their own agenda of literary internationalization and Latin America cultural unification.
World literature has re-emerged recently as central to reflections on the state of comparative li... more World literature has re-emerged recently as central to reflections on the state of comparative literature as a discipline. In these debates, perspectives from the Lusophone world are often marginalized, ignored, or forgotten, despite the fact that the place of these countries and their literatures in a world sphere has been a subject of critical analysis since at least the 1960s. As Antonio Candido pointed out, the study of Brazilian literature is inextricable from examining its relationships to other literary traditions. The concept of world literature has continued to invigorate and problematize studies of the production, circulation, translation, and reception of Luso-Afro-Brazilian literary works. By considering how social, political, and economic power dynamics influence linguistic, literary, and cultural exchanges, Roberto Schwarz, Silviano Santiago, and Paulo de Medeiros, among others, have proposed interventions into debates on World Literature from a Luso-Afro-Brazilian perspective. Schwarz's concept of "misplaced ideas" has been recuperated in Franco Moretti's discussion of international literary exchange. Santiago's study of Joaquim Nabuco's cosmopolitanism as an attraction for the world informs Mariano Siskind's conceptualization of a Latin American "desire for the world." As part of the Warwick Research Collective, Medeiros has contributed examples from Portugal and its former colonies in Africa to the group's definition of world literature as the literature of the modern capitalist world-system and, thus, combined and uneven. These critics exemplify how scholars from Brazil, Portugal, and other countries with Portuguese as an official or commonly spoken language, as well as those studying these literatures and cultures, offer original approaches to world
This article addresses circulation and exchange in the Global South by examining the case of Bibl... more This article addresses circulation and exchange in the Global South by examining the case of Biblioteca Ayacucho (1973), a transnational collection of over 500 books from several Latin American countries. Conceived as an “instrument for Latin American integration,” Ayachucho sought to connect the region by assembling and disseminating its diverse cultural and intellectual traditions. I discuss Ayacucho’s strategies of transnationalization which, in addition to book publishing, also relied on networks of intellectual collaboration and exchange. Focusing on its Brazilian titles, I argue that Ayacucho articulates a model of world literature that employs a contextually grounded yet transnationally based framework. By engaging Latin American specialists and relying on local scholarship, Ayacucho offers an inclusive model of world literature that allies both distant and close reading in the construction of a transnational literature. As such, it defies established assumptions about litera...
Before his death in 2003, Brazilian poet, critic and translator Haroldo de Campos had produced a ... more Before his death in 2003, Brazilian poet, critic and translator Haroldo de Campos had produced a robust body of work on translation theory, which consistently addressed the problem of subordination of target literatures to their source. His audacious concept of ‘transcreation’ championed that translation should be a creative re-invention instead of a mere reproduction of texts. In this article I demonstrate that De Campos’s translation theory subverts the hierarchical categories and values that have structured the field of world literature. Positioning himself as an intellectual from an ‘ex-centric’ literary culture, situated outside of the centers of global circulation, De Campos critiqued the unequal weight usually assigned to translated and original texts, author and translator, established and ascending traditions. His theory effectively illustrates how power differentials between diverse literary contexts affect the ways in which world literature is conceived. I argue that De Campos’s response to the standing inequality that characterizes translational exchanges involved a literary solution. As a creative act in its own right, imbued with the values of originality and difference, transcreation offered an aesthetic answer to the problems of authenticity, influence and literary dependence.
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