IV Annual Cycle Young Social Scientists
2008-2009

December 17th, 2008, 17:00, CES Seminar Room
 
Elena Brugioni (University of Minho)

Itinerant theory[ies]. Post-colonial places and literary practices: a reflection on Mia Couto’s writings

Abstract: With this reflection, the epistemological instance of the itinerant theory (Said, 2002) – suggested, firstly, through an autobiography all in all significant – is posed in a perspective of an heuristic assumption, in my estimation, essential for a situated approach of the literary proposal I intend to consider. Moreover, the corpus in analysis falls upon the work of Mozambiquan writer Mia Couto and, especially, the language dimension – Portuguese and literary – that, a priori, stands out as a problematical space of this author’s writings.
In a further moment – in a theoretical plan - , whilst speaking in terms of language and aiming towards reflection concerning the identitarian palimpsest that disembogues from this, I shall  consider the dimension of specificity without exceptionality, quoting Boaventura de Sousa Santos, that characterizes post-colonialism in the space-time of the Portuguese official language (Santos, 2001), seeking an [inevitable] counterpoint  with the theoretical matrix formulations – for example, and in lack of better definitions – Anglophones or Francophones. Moreover, the analysis of these textualities, the occurrence of operational concepts such as resistance and hegemony (Gramsci, 2007) and yet the relation and opacity (Glissant, 2003) shall be functional for the formulation of a mundane approach (Said, 2004) that remits, immediately, towards a critical and conceptual itinerary that, in strict sense, aims to challenge the ambiguous categories of assimilation and/or typification that seem to configure the critical activities produced regarding this author’s writings.

 Biographic note: Elena Brugioni holds a Degree in Modern Humanities - philological orientation – at Università degli Studi di bolgna. Presently a doctoral student in African Literatures of Portuguese Language and Post-colonial Studies at University of Minho. She is researcher at the Centre for Humanistic Studies, University of Minho – CEHUM and member of the Research Group in Post-colonial Studies and Intervention Literatures at the same centre. Lecturer of Italian language and culture at the Institute of Humanities and Human Sciences of the same university. Her more recent publications include: (i) “O ‘neologismo’ coutiano: despudor, ignorância ou continuada hegemonia ocidental?” In Macedo, A. G. – Keating, M. E. (2007). O Poder das narrativas / As narrativas do poder. VII and VIII Autumn Colloquiums Conference Proceedings. Braga: CEHUM. (ii) “Mia Couto, poeta de Raiz de Orvalho. Configurações poéticas e lugares pós-coloniais” in Teia Literária (2008), UFRJ: Brasil. (iii) “Old Empires, New Cartographies: Problematizing concepts of europhone assimilation” (2008) (in the print). Elena Brugioni is a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation grantee.