In the artistic production of Conceição Evaristo, we will analyze Insubmissas lágrimas de Mulheres (Unruly Tears of Women), a book that narrates thirteen stories of women contacted by a common narrator, harking back to the oral tradition of storytelling. Each of these stories conveys the physical, symbolic, and psychological pains and violence experienced by a Black body. Given that this is a work within the theoretical field of comparative literature, we will introduce the visual artist Rosana Paulino, who also works with the same themes but in a more illustrative and concrete manner. Her artistic productions incorporate diverse materials such as lines and embroidery, and drawings where the main character lived experience of Black women, particularly about gender and social issues, is a critical area of analysis. This proposal embarks on a compelling study of two prominent Brazilian artists who powerfully explore identity, memory, and the experiences of Black women, specifically within the Brazilian context. We will conduct a comparative analysis of Conceição Evaristo, a distinguished writer, and Rosana Paulino, an acclaimed visual artist. Their narratives and artistic expressions illuminate profound stories of ancestry, effectively reconstructing identities and a sense of belonging that have been profoundly altered by the legacies of the slave trade and the enslavement of human beings.

Theoretical references

Aliaga, Juan Vicente. Orden Fálico: Androcentrismo y violência de gênero em las prácticas artísticas Del siglo XX. Madrid – Espanha, Akai, 2007.

Archer, Michael. Ideologia, identidade e diferenças, In.: Arte Contemporânea: Uma História Concisa. Tradução: Alexandre Krug e Valter Lellis Siqueira. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2001.

García Canclini, Néstor. Diferentes, desiguais e desconectados: mapas da interculturalidade. Tradução: Luiz Sérgio Henriques. – 3ª Edição. 1 rep. – Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ, 2015.

Jeudy, Henri-Pierre, O corpo como objeto de arte. Tradução: Tereza Lourenço. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 2002.

Maffesoli, Michel. A transfiguração do Político: a tribalização do mundo. Tradução de Juremir Machado da Silva. – 3 edição – Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2005.

Nicholin, Linda. Por que não houve grandes mulheres artistas? São Paulo, Editora Aurora / Publication Studio SP, 2016.

Silva, Tomaz Tadeu da. Quem precisa da identidade? In Identidade e diferença: a perspectiva dos Estudos culturais / Tomaz Tadeu da Silva ( org. ). Stuart Hall, Kathryn Woodward, 15ª edição, Petrópolis, RJ, Vozes, 2014.

Harlem Renaissance is the first intellectual movement in the African American history and is of great significance in the modernization and prosperity of African American literature. This paper, by taking “transnational literary community” as a perspective, offers a tentative re-examination of this movement, and casts new light upon the nature, dynamics and consequence of this intellectual movement, which lie remarkably in transnationality. In some sense, this movement, while contributing to the independence of American literature, is a renaissance of the world African diasporic literature and culture.

Edouard Glissant introduced and developed a new critical approach to Caribbean identity throughout two of his major works, Caribbean Discourse (1981) and Poetics of Relation (1990). Glissant, while recognizing that all cultures are to some degree “composite cultures,” clarifies the historical, cultural, and geographical conditions that primed the Caribbean for a creolized orientation. This presentation is a comparative literary investigation into societal attitudes towards creolization in nineteenth-century Philippines, Spain, and Louisiana. Following the geo-cultural theories of Glissant and Michael Wiedorn, I develop a framework for comparing peninsular and archipelagic thought. In the application of creolist theories to these geographies, this presentation probes the extensibility of Glissant’s archipelagic and island studies theories beyond the Caribbean context as well as provides a new mode of thinking through cultural connectivity in the nineteenth century. In analyzing works by José Rizal, Benito Pérez Galdós, Kate Chopin, and Lafcadio Hearn, I illuminate a connection between geographical thought and creolist attitudes across literary traditions.

Folklore is a significant part of one’s social identity and is important in every society. This study examines folklore representations through a comparative study of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Mayasalun Hadi’s The Prophecy of Pharaoh (2011). Both novels represent African-American and Iraqi cultures, respectively. This article aims to investigate and analyze the use of folklore in resisting racial oppression, empowering African-American women against racism and family abuse, conveying power and cultural identity to the next generation, creating an identity for people, and protecting people from cultural assimilation. The article employs analytical strategies such as postcolonial analysis and an in-depth examination of the selected novels, focusing on the traditional elements of the embedded folklore, their cultural and social contexts, functions, and their connection to humanity, nationalism, and cultural identity. Additionally, this study consults the established theories and notions set by modern folklorists such as William Thomas and William Wilson to understand the hidden meaning behind folklore adaptation.