Maria do Carmo Cardoso Mendes (Universidade do Minho)
Lusophone Literature in African Countries
A temática do exílio marca presença constante na literatura cabo-verdiana, desde Claridade (1936 – revista e movimento fundadores da cabo-verdianidade) até ao momento presente, e constitui um elemento determinante para a definição da identidade do arquipélago.
Os propósitos principais da comunicação são: 1) traçar, num percurso cronológico, as mais significativas abordagens literárias do exílio e da diáspora dos cabo-verdianos, através da análise dos seguintes textos: poesias líricas publicadas em Claridade; romance Chiquinho (1947), de Baltasar Lopes; coletânea de contos Cais-do-Sodré té Salamansa (1974); romance Eva, de Germano Almeida (2006); 2) mostrar que os fluxos migratórios de cabo-verdianos constituem objeto privilegiado de tratamento literário, convertendo as personagens que os cumprem em protagonistas de narrativas de exílio; 3) clarificar as dicotomias simbólicas e geográficas criadas pelos romances; 4) evidenciar as atitudes de personagens literárias cabo-verdianas em exílio, destacando a sujeição a discursos xenófobos (nomeadamente em contexto colonial, com massivas migrações para a capital portuguesa) e a persistente nostalgia da pátria; 5) determinar, na análise de um romance português contemporâneo, O Vento Assobiando nas Gruas, de Lídia Jorge, a formação de novos exilados africanos, surgidos em Portugal depois de 1975; 6) sublinhar o contributo valioso da literatura cabo-verdiana para a compreensão da experiência humana do exílio;
Patrick O’Shea (University of Manchester)
Name: Patrick O’Shea
Diasporic Absence in Contemporary Cuba
This paper will explore the Cuban cultural imagination as a site of diasporic practice through an examination of the experiences with emigration and the narration of absence by Cubans currently living on the island. Based on the on-going PhD project of the same title, this paper proposes to rethink the concept of Cuban diaspora by exploring the experience and narration of diasporic absence in contemporary Cuba. Fundamentally, the present research examines emigration and diaspora as central features of contemporary Cuban society but, crucially, understands these processes as lived simultaneously by both those who emigrate and those who do not. Through interviews conducted in Cuba, the biographical narratives of those who have not emigrated serve to interrogate some assumptions that characterise the study of Cuba and attempt to account for the complexity of the Cuban cultural encounter with emigration, exile and diaspora. A generational approach is employed to better understand how the absence of family members, friends, colleagues and compatriots has been experienced over several generations of Cubans living on the island. The complex, intertwined, multiple and emotional processes of migration and transnational relationships narrated in the interview material reveal the cultural penetration of the diasporic experience in the Cuban imagination. Through these various diasporic imaginaries, negotiated and edified as narratives, a more nuanced understanding is permitted of the dialogical cultural practice of diaspora in contemporary Cuban society.
Néfer Muñoz-Solano (Harvard University)
Perrozompopo: non-conformist migrant music after the Sandinista Revolution
This paper explores the musical work of Nicaraguan contemporary composer and singer, Ramón Mejía, better known as Perrozompopo, who has recently become a pivotal voice in the Central American cultural scene for his poetic lyrics about migrants, poverty, corruption, urban violence and social injustice.
Perrozompopo, which in Nicaragua means lizard, is a member of the Mejía Godoys, one of the most renowened musical families in Latin America. During the Sandinista Revolution of the1970s and 1980s, the previous generation of the Mejía Godoys were active cultural, social and political figures who were also involved in the Liberation Theology movement.
In 2010, Perrozompopo released his third album, entitled, Canciones Populares Contestatarias (Popular Rebellious Songs) a collection of songs constituting rock and pop rythms and lyrics about social issues and the scars of the post civil war life in Nicaragua and other parts of Central America. The album has had regional success and was nominated to receive a Latin Grammy Award in the United States.
Barely known outside of Central America, Perrozompopo lives in Managua but frequently performs in Costa Rica. His lyrics are indicative of Nicaragua’s strong poetic tradition, from the modernista works of Rubén Darío to the more socially conscious poetry of Gioconda Belli and Ernesto Cardenal.
María Bastianes (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
La Celestina a través del Atlántico. Características y recepción de dos puestas en escena de la obra de Roja en Buenos Aires.
A pesar de las aún vivas discusiones en torno a su género y su contenido, muchas veces en conflicto con las restricciones morales imperantes, La Celestina es uno de los textos clásicos más representados durante el siglo XX y lo que va del XXI, a la par de las más exitosas obras del Barroco como La vida es sueño, El alcalde de Zalamea o Fuenteovejuna. No es de extrañar, por tanto, que se encuentre con frecuencia en el repertorio de aquellos profesionales del teatro que, por coyunturas de diversa índole, se trasladan desde España a Hispanoamérica.
El presente trabajo pretende hacer un repaso por algunas de las principales puestas en escena de La Celestina montadas por artistas de origen español en Argentina: sus particulares características, la manera en que fueron recibidas por el público hispanoamericano y las diferencias con respecto a versiones contemporáneas representadas en España (que durante época franquista debieron acomodarse a las limitaciones impuestas por la censura). La presentación se centrará en dos montajes claves y polémicos: la adaptación de Ricardo Morales que Margarita Xirgu, al frente de la Compañía Nacional Uruguaya, lleva a Buenos Aires en 1956, y la versión musical que en 1974 ofrece Enrique Llovet, a la sazón consejero cultural de la Embajada Española, bajo la dirección de José Gordon Paso.
Narratives of Migration and Exile 