Manuel Raimundo Querino (1851-1923): Two events on Machado de Assis in the US

15/09/2008

Two events on Machado de Assis in the US

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1. Panel Discussion: Machado and His Times, Monday, September
15, Americas Society, New York City
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LITERATURE AT AMERICAS SOCIETY

Panel discussion (in English)

Machado and His Times

Monday, September 15, 7 PM

Join us for a panel discussion on the great Brazilian writer
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), long recognized as
one of Brazil's most important and influential literary figures.
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis wrote nine novels, eight short-
story collections, four volumes of poetry, 13 plays, and numerous
critical essays. He is best known for his novels Memórias
Póstumas de Brás Cubas and Dom Casmurro, both of which have been
masterfully translated by Gregory Rabassa. The panel will include
specialists and aficionados of Machado's work, including Jussara
Menezes Quadros (Princeton), Barbara Weinstein (New York
University), and Michael Wood (Princeton). Together they will
discuss the life and legacy of the man Susan Sontag once referred
to as "the greatest author ever produced in Latin America." Lidia
Santos (The Graduate Center, CUNY) will moderate the discussion.
H. E. José Alfredo Graça Lima, Consul General of Brazil in New
York, will introduce the discussion. This program is presented as
part of the Machado 21: a Centennial Celebration festival, which
celebrates Machado's contribution to world literature and his
relevance today.

The Machado 21 collaborating institutions are: the Americas
Society, the Consulate General of Brazil in New York, the
Brazilian Endowment for the Arts, the Graduate Center, CUNY, and
the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

For further information about the Machado 21 festival, visit
web.gc.cuny.edu/hispanic/machado21 and www.filmlinc.com.

Reservations are required.
Please email
culture@americas-society.org
or call (212) 277 8359, ext. 1

Americas Society gratefully acknowledges the following donors for
their generous support of the Literature program: Honorary
Benefactor Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat; The Reed Foundation; New
York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs; and Quebec Government Office in
New York. Additional in-kind support has been provided by:
InterAmericas®-Society of Arts and Letters of the Americas; and
Blue Metropolis Foundation.

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2. Machado 21: A Centennial Celebration, September 15-19,
Manhattan, New York and New Haven, Connecticut
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REMINDER

MACHADO 21: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

celebrating the work of Brazil's greatest novelist

September 15th to 19th 2008
Where: Manhattan, NY and New Haven, CT

General description of the event

Machado 21: A Centennial Celebration is a festival composed of
academic panels, a book exhibition, a symposium, a concert and
film screenings. For one week, these academic and cultural
offerings will be spread throughout Manhattan and New Haven
honoring the centennial of the death of Brazilian writer Machado
de Assis, considered by Susan Sontag “the greatest author ever
produced in Latin America.” Harold Bloom titled him a genius and
Michael Wood affirmed that he was “undoubtedly a master.” Besides
his national and international stature as Brazil’s foremost
novelist, Machado will also be analyzed for his contributions to
the genre of the novel, for his mordant socio-political criticism
of Brazilian society and for his deft perception of the human
condition. The pervasive popularity of his work will be shown
through adaptations of his work for cinema and other forms of
performances. Polemic issues about his work, such as his
infrequent references to slavery, while himself a descendent of
slaves, will also be discussed by the specialists brought
together by festival organizers.

More information www.machado21.com
Contact us: machado21@gc.cuny.edu

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About Manuel Querino

ln a racial climate that was at best condescending and at worst genocidal toward blacks, Manuel Querino helped pioneer the study of the Afro-Brazilians and their culture.

This blog is dedicated to the life, work and causes of this African-Brazilian scholar. The importance of his pioneering efforts in the study of Afro-Brazilian culture can only be understood in the perspective of the environment of pseudoscientific racism in which all intellectuals lived in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Brazil.

By recognizing the contributions of Africans and their descendants to Brazil's national identity and culture, even a Brazilian "race," Querino displayed phenomenal independence of scholarship and mind. He defied the influence of European pseudoscientific racism in a country whose economy was partially based on racial slavery until 1888. Like most Brazilian intellectuals, Querino was seeking to provide a scientific or historical basis for a founding myth of Brazilian nationality and culture: in searching for the characteristic that gave their country and people their unique identity, he chose the fait accompli and undeniable fact of widespread cultural and biological miscegenation.

Quotations

> "Here it was the work of blacks that sustained the nobility and prosperity of Brazil for centuries, without fail; it was as a result of their work that we have scientific institutions, letters, arts, commerce, industry, etc. Therefore, they have played an outstanding role as a factor in Brazilian civilization.” - Manuel Querino
> "Brazil has two great glories: the bounty of its soil and the talent of the mestiço." - Manuel Querino
> "The generosity of the human spirit can overcome all adversity. Through compassion and caring, we create...hope." - Nelson Mandela
> "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
> "Until the lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." - African proverb
> "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others.... One ever feels his twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." - W.E.B. DuBois
> "From a genetic perspective, all humans are Africans, either residing in Africa or in recent exile." - Svante Pääbo (Swedish biologist specialized in evolutionary genetics)
> "There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life." - Booker T. Washington
> "We have to recognize that the price of equality in pluralism, like the price of liberty, is eternal vigilance." - Carl N. Degler

Querinophiles and Querinologists

Several scholars have focussed on Querino in works published and produced in Brazil and the US over the past few decades, including Jorge Calmon, Pedro Calmon, E. Bradford Burns, Jaime Nascimento, Jaime Sodré, Maria das Graças Andrade Leal, David Brookshaw, Emanoel Araújo, Luiz Alberto Ribeiro Freire, Eliane Nunes, Kim Butler, Vivaldo da Costa Lima, Antonio Sergio Alfredo Guimarães and Waldeloir Rego. The greatest "Querinophile" of all was Jorge Amado, who drew inspiration from Querino's life and works when creating Pedro Archanjo, the protagonist of Tent of Miracles.

Background

My interest in Manuel Querino began when I was studying for my MA in Latin American Studies at UCLA in the early 1980s. After reading Jorge Amado's Tent of Miracles, I learned that the protagonist was largely inspired by Querino's life and works. My MA advisor, the late E. Bradford Burns, shared my interest in Querino and urged me to write his biography. It has taken me a long time to get around to it - I moved to Brazil shortly after graduating in 1986 and spent 28 years there making a living as a translator and raising a family before returning to the UK. In addition to researching Querino's life and Brazilian race relations in general, my PhD in Ethnic Studies at CEAO/UFBA focussed on the intellectual history of the African diaspora through two figures: Manuel R. Querino and Booker T. Washington. I recently published a version of my thesis in Portuguese and am working on the English edition. Suggestions and/or critiques of this blog will be warmly and gratefully welcomed.

-- Sabrina Gledhill