Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Note: Open to graduate students only

This course examines how theater written in Portuguese has been central to imagining, challenging, and redefining nation and identity across the Lusophone world. From Gil Vicente’s early allegorical plays to contemporary works by Brazilian, Portuguese, and African playwrights, we will study how dramatists use the stage as a site of negotiation between tradition and modernity, authority and resistance, colonialism and postcolonial reimaginings. Readings will include canonical voices alongside women playwrights and experimental collectives whose contributions interrogate issues of gender, race, class, politics, and cultural memory. Through close reading, discussion, and performance-based activities, students will analyze plays in their historical and cultural contexts while also experimenting with creative perspectives. We will focus on key historical moments such as the Portuguese maritime expansion, the Estado Novo dictatorship, Brazil’s military regime, and post-independence movements in Lusophone Africa, and on topics like nation-building, censorship, and political resistance.

HISP-P 575       #28560     2:20P-3:35P   MW          GA 0013       Prof. Estela Vieira

Note: Above class meets with HISP-P475 & P498