Portuguese: Transculturality and Gender in Contemporary literature

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• explain key ideas in post-colonial and gender theoretical concepts and discuss these in relation to transcultural issues in Portuguese-speaking post-colonial societies
• analyse and interpret literary works based on critical concepts and theories addressed in the course, and relate the works to their socio-cultural and historical context
• orally and in writing communicate and argue for their own literary interpretations, and comment on others‘, with very good mastery of the Portuguese language
• independently search for, collect and use relevant sources, and refer to them in an academically correct manner.

The course includes in-depth studies of a number of representative contemporary literary works from Portuguese-speaking Africa, Portugal and Brazil. The works are contextualised in their specific socio-cultural, political and historical context and analysed primarily with respect to issues related to post-coloniality, gender and transcultural identities. Through the theoretical texts we deepen the understanding of some central post-colonial concepts and transcultural themes, such as luso-tropicalism, hybridity, cultural translation and migration. We will study their relevance to the cultural understanding of the Portuguese-speaking communities of today.

• Written assignments
• Oral presentations of written material
• Active participation in seminars

Lectures and seminars with group discussions. The language of instruction is Portuguese, and English and/or Swedish are used as support languages.

The Swedish grades U–VG.

• Seminars, Assignments, Presentations - 7.5 cr