Arabs have left a permanent imprint on Brazil: from the Moorish legacy of Muslim Iberia, transmitted by Portuguese settlers; to waves of Arab immigrants since the late nineteenth century; to the prominence today of Brazilians of Arab descent in politics, the economy, literature, and culture.
Waïl S. Hassan will discuss how the Arab world works paradoxically as a site of otherness (different language, culture, and religion) and solidarity (with cultural, historical, demographic, and geopolitical ties). What explains this contradiction is a Brazilian variety of Orientalism, distinct from the British, French, and U.S. varieties analyzed by Edward Said, that problematizes the idealized image of Brazil as a country built on mistura (ethnic and racial mixing) and “cultural anthropophagy,” or the digestion and incorporation of diverse cultural influences.
Waïl S. Hassan is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His current research focuses on the Arabic novel and on Arab literary and cultural relations with the Americas.
This event is cosponsored by the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program.