This seminar explores the socio-cultural world of Africans and their descendants in Brazil from a historical and anthropological perspective. The seminar is divided into three sessions. The first one deals with the slave trade, the socioeconomic conditions of the colonial period and processes of insurgence and resistance like marronage. The second session focuses on religious practice and thought, examining the institutional history of Candomblé, its ritual transformative nature and its dynamics of circulation in the context of the larger Black Atlantic. The third session explores contemporary phenomena in Brazilian society like racial violence, the politics of Afro-Brazilian heritage and Black cultural identity. The sessions will use selected texts for discussions.
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Memories of Slavery and Identity
Mon, May 19, 20255:30 pm to 7:30 pm -
Afro-Brazilian Religious Transformations
Tue, May 20, 20255:30 pm to 7:30 pm -
The Politics of Contemporary Brazilian Black Culture
Wed, May 21, 20255:30 pm to 7:30 pm -
Public Lecture: Afro-Atlantic Biographies and Geographies: The Movement of Return to África by Former Enslaved People from Brazil in the Nineteenth Century
Thu, May 22, 20256:00 pm
Luis Nicolau Parés is Professor of Anthropology at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil). His interests include the history and anthropology of West African and Afro-Brazilian religions and their cultural transformations in the Atlantic world. He is the author of The Formation of Candomblé: Vodun History and Ritual in Brazil (Editora Unicamp, 2007; University of North Carolina Press, 2013), O Rei, o Pai e a Morte. A Religião Vodum na Antiga Costa dos Escravos na África Ocidental (Companhia das Letras, 2016), and the co-editor of Sorcery in the Black Atlantic (The University of Chicago Press, 2011). His latest book is Joaquim de Almeida. A história do africano traficado que se tornou traficante de africanos (Companhia das Letras, 2023).