30167 - Portuguese and Brazilian Literature 2 (2nd cycle)

Course contents

The course “Museu Brasil: the symbolic construction of an unfinished nation”, taught in Portuguese and organised using innovative teaching methods, offers a critical reflection on the representability of Brazil as an unfinished nation. The course approaches the museum not as a space of peaceful synthesis, but as a problematic and intercultural apparatus: an impossible archive of images, stereotypes, ruins, promises of modernisation, colonial divisions and social inequalities.

The theoretical core of the course centres on the question of what it means to ‘represent’ Brazil: which images have cemented the nation in the domestic and international imagination, which clichés have made it recognisable, and how certain cultural and literary periods have confirmed, undermined or redefined them.

Particular attention will be paid to Brazilian Modernism, understood as a decisive moment in the reformulation of the national imagination: aesthetic avant-garde, cultural anthropophagy, the reinvention of tradition, a critique of colonial legacies, and the tension between the national project and the plurality of ‘Brazils’.

The exhibition *Complexo Brasil* (2025), curated by José Miguel Wisnik, presented a display of different Brazils (geographical, ethnic, linguistic, visual, musical, social and literary) and enables us to examine the Drummondian impasse encapsulated in the verse ‘No Brazil exists’.

The idea of an impossible ‘Museu Brasil’ will provide a framework for discussing the impossibility of fully encompassing the Brazilian experience and the difficulty of constructing a unified narrative of the nation. Brazil will thus be approached not as a stable entity, but as a problem of form, memory, political imagination and symbolic conflict. This course engages in dialogue with Prof. Roberto Mulinacci’s course dedicated to the Museum of Portuguese Language.

Students with SLDs or temporary or permanent disabilities: we suggest that you contact the relevant university office ( https://site.unibo.it/ studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/ en [https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en] ) and your teacher immediately to work together to find the most effective strategies for attending classes and/or preparing for exams.
Any requests for exam accommodations must be made at least 15 days before the date of the exam, by sending an email to the teacher and copying (Cc) the email address disabilita@unibo.it (in case of disability) or dsa@unibo.it (for students with Specific Learning Difficulties).

Readings/Bibliography

Essential references

• Bonacini, Elisa, I musei e le forme dello storytelling digitale, Canterano, Aracne, 2020.
  
• Grechi, Giulia, Decolonizzare il museo. Mostrazioni, pratiche artistiche, sguardi incarnati, Milano–Udine, Mimesis, 2021.
• Violi, Patrizia, Paesaggi della memoria. Il trauma, lo spazio, la storia, Milano, Bompiani, 2014.
• Wisnik, José Miguel (a cura di), Complexo Brasil, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian–Companhia das Letras, 2025.
• Zevi, Adachiara, Monumenti per difetto. Dalle Fosse Ardeatine alle pietre d’inciampo, Roma, Donzelli, 2014.

Teaching methods

The course will consist of lectures, seminar discussions, annotated readings of literary and critical texts, and the analysis of images, exhibition materials, audiovisual documents and cultural artefacts. The methodology adopted emphasises interdisciplinarity and dialogue between literature, cultural history, the visual arts, music, anthropology, museology and postcolonial studies.


Alongside the introductory lectures, there will be group discussions on shared texts, individual or group in-depth study modules, and seminar presentations. The aim is to foster active, critical and progressive learning, in which students can construct, through dialogue and active participation, their own connections between texts, contexts and theoretical issues.

Assessment methods

The assessment of learning aims to ascertain whether the course’s learning outcomes have been achieved: knowledge of the main historical and cultural themes covered; the ability to analyse texts and cultural artefacts critically; mastery of specialist terminology; and the ability to make connections between literature, the arts, history and cultural theory.

Assessment may consist of:

• active participation in seminar discussions;
• an individual or group oral presentation on an agreed topic;
• a final collaborative project on a topic covered in the course;
• Should it be necessary to supplement the assessment methods outlined above, a final oral examination may be arranged.

The final mark will take into account knowledge of the course content, the quality of argumentation, participation both in person and online, the ability to establish interdisciplinary links, interpretative autonomy and precision of expression.

A limited, predominantly descriptive understanding, supported only partially by analytical skills, will result in a pass mark. A broad, accurate understanding, capable of linking texts, contexts and critical categories, will result in a pass or good mark. An in-depth, independent understanding, grounded in theory and capable of producing original and interdisciplinary interpretations, will result in a very good or excellent mark.

With regard to the assessment of learning, limited, declared and non-substantial use of generative AI is permitted for support activities, such as summarising, rephrasing or the preliminary organisation of materials. Substantial use of AI for the production of the written work or parts of the examination is not permitted without explicit declaration and critical discussion.

Teaching tools

The course will make extensive use of the platform Virtuale for blended learning, with the sharing of teaching materials, texts, presentations, images, audiovisual materials, links to digital resources and supplementary bibliographical references. Materials drawn from exhibition catalogues, digital archives, and musical and iconographic resources will also be used, in line with the course’s interdisciplinary approach.

The use of digital tools and, to a limited and explicitly stated extent, generative AI tools may be recommended to support independent study, the summarising of materials and self-assessment, without replacing the direct reading of texts or personal critical analysis.

Office hours

See the website of Roberto Vecchi