Brazilian Culture: Modernity and National Identity

Harvard FAS

This seminar explores how culture has shaped Brazilian national identity. Drawing on ethnography, historical sources, song lyrics, film, and mass media, the course examines how cultural forms negotiate race, class, gender, regionalism, tradition, religion, and consumption. Emphasizing popular culture as a key arena of social conflict and creativity, we analyze how music, carnival, cinema, sport, and television have mediated tensions between modernity and tradition, nation and region,…