Making Space in Brasília: Cultural Texts from 2009 to 2014

  • Sophia Beal University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Keywords: Power, Place, Brazil, Music, Literature

Abstract

In learning about Brasília, we learn about the power of place, not as deriving from some static, unchanging location, but from the dynamic negotiations that unfold there. Drawing on theory related to social space and cultural geography, particularly that of Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey, this study analyzes music, music videos, creative non-fiction, and poetry concerned with the negotiations that imbue the city with meaning. Five of Brasília’s contemporary cultural texts (created by Nicolas Behr, Ellen Oléria, Viela 17, Sexy Fi, and Augusto Rodrigues from 2009 to 2014) illustrate the spatial negotiations that shape the subjectivities of Brasília’s residents.

Author Biography

Sophia Beal, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Sophia Beal is an Assistant Professor of Portuguese at the University of Minnesota. She received her doctorate from Brown University. She is the author of Brazil under Construction: Fiction and Public Works (2013) and articles on Brazilian  ction and urbanism in the Luso-Brazilian Review, Hispania, Brasil-Brazil, Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea, and elsewhere. She co-edited Infrastructuralism, a special issue of Modern Fiction Studies (Winter 2015).
Published
2015-04-01
Section
Articles