About us

Kaliban is a research center situated in the Department of Literary Theory of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP/Brazil), led by Professors Alfredo Cesar Melo and Elena Brugioni, and aims at examining the intersections between postcolonial studies and world literature. 

Kaliban's Postcolonial Studies front holds the urgent task of contributing to the provincialization of postcolonial studies, i.e., the task of comprehending the various critical reflections on the effects of colonialism, in its diverse historical and political configurations, as a postcolonial knowledges archive (with decolonizing potential), which should be available to everyone, without normative models centered on specific countries to be followed – what would inevitably establish a hierarchy between colonial experiences –, neither should we estimulate the reproduction of the international division of knowledge, where the center is entrusted with the theorizing role and the periphery is taken as an object to be theorized. It is necessary to find a dialogic tension between the different modes of thinking the postcolonial across the globe, which are at the same time combined and uneven, different and familiar, singular and connected. Only provincializing these knowledges we have better conditions of embracing the diverse postcolonial critical gestures that deal with Latin-American (including Brazilian), African, Arab, Caribbean and South-Asian experiences.

In turn, Kaliban's World Literary Studies front also holds a challenging task within Brazil's intellectual field: to broaden the conception of world in an intellectual tradition such as the Brazilian one, where literary and epistemological cartographies are often stuck in a confined space between the nationalist narcissism of the Brazilian literary tradition and the Eurocentric oedipianism, filled with an affected cosmopolitanism and restricted to the countries of the North Atlantic which are, in fact, not interested in the world's diversity.

More generally, we might say that Kaliban intends to be a research center that has a broaden world as its geopolitical assumption: a world whose different spaces will not be seen as "areas" to be mapped by a central theory, but rather as places of production of knowledge, reflection and narratives. 

Researchers

Internal members (IEL/Unicamp)

Elena Brugioni. Assistant Professor at the Department of Literary Theory (DTL/Unicamp). She has published and developed research in the fields of Comparative African Literatures, Indian Ocean Studies, Comparative Literatures and Postcolonial theory. Her current research interests are engaged with alternative critical cartographies and theoretical paradigms for the study of contemporary African literatures and visual narratives in a postcolonial comparative perspective.

Alfredo Cesar Melo. Assistant Professor at the Department of Literary Theory (DTL/Unicamp). Works with varied themes: experimental novel, Brazilian essay, intersections between Brazilian social thought and modern Brazilian literature, politics of memory, postcolonial studies, metaphors of cultural negotiation (anthropophagy, "transculturación"), comparisons between Brazilian and Latin American essay and the cultural and literary relations between Brazil and African countries of Portuguese language.

Mariana Peceguini Ruggieri. Post-doc researcher in Literary Theory and History with the project "Investigations around the poetics of zapatismo" (Fapesp). She was a visiting researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (2016) and the University of Michigan (2012).

Fernanda Bianca Gonçalves Gallo. Post-doc researcher in Literary Theory and History with the project "João Paulo Borges Coelho e Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa: dialogue between literature and historical narrative in Mozambique" (Fapesp). Works in the fields of history, anthropology, immaterial cultural patrimony and literature, with emphasis in the African continent and Mozambique, where she developed field work and research between the years of 2012 and 2016, as well as artistic projects such as the video-documentary “Na Rota Da Marrabenta: Música moçambicana em Movimento” (2014).

Marta Banasiak. Post-doc researcher in Literary Theory and History with the project "From the (semi-)periphery one can see the world: African literature in the context of world-literature" (Fapesp). Collaborating member of the Centre for African and Development Studies (CEsA), University of Lisbon. Develops research and publishes in the areas of Portuguese-speaking African Literatures with a focus on Mozambican Literature, Comparative African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies and World(-)literary theories.

Rodrigo Octávio Águeda Bandeira Cardoso. PhD candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project "Políticas do primitivismo na América Latina" (Capes). He was a visiting researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. Investigates questions on aesthetics, modernism and vanguard in Brazil and Latin America, indigenism and translation.

Ianes Augusto . PhD Candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project "Violence and historical experience in Guinea-Bissau: the loteray form and social process in Abdulai Sila and Filinto de Barros". Works in the fields of African Literatures, Postcolonial Theory and Comparative Literature, focusing on the areas of Guinean Literature under the perspective of Memory, Identity, Violence and Politics. 

Karen de Andrade. PhD candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project “Tradução comentada de Myth, Literature and the African World de Wole Soyinka” (CNPq). Works on the fields of African Literatures and Translation Studies, with emphasis on Postcolonial Theory, investigating the relation between African and Afrodiasporic dramatic forms and the Yoruba ritual mythology. She has experience on Theatrical Translation. Other areas of interest are: Comparative Literature, Literary Theory, Nigerian Literature and Oriental Scenic Traditions.

Bruna Dias Guimarães. PhD candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project “Gilberto Freyre e o cosmopolitismo como ponta de lança” (Capes). Holds a Bachelor and a Masters degree in Economic Sciences.

Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice. Masters candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project "Environmental crisis, world-literature and the Indian Ocean paradigm in João Paulo Borges Coelho" (Fapesp). Developed part of her Masters research at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon (FLUL). Translated the work Combined and uneven development: Towards a new theory of world-literature (WREC, 2015) to Portuguese (WREC, 2020). Her current research interests are within the fields of African Literatures and Comparative Literature, with emphasis on Mozambican Literature, Indian Ocean Studies, World-Literature and Postcolonial Theory.

Floriza Fernandes. Masters candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project “A Diáspora do Crespo: Esse Cabelo e a Literatura Pós-Colonial Portuguesa”. Holds a degree in Languages and Literatures, is a teacher and researcher with interest on African Literature, Diasporic Literatures and Literary Transits made by Postcolonial Literatures worldwide.

Maurício Gabriel dos Santos Nascimento. Masters candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project "Quarto de Despejo & Sala de Visitas: Carolina de Jesus, Intérprete extraordinária do Brasil” (CNPq). Teacher, researcher and militant with interest and experience in the fields of language, literature, education, race, sexuality and gender.

Angelo Gabriel Uehara Ardonde. Masters candidate in Literary Theory and History with the project "Between the radical democrat and the protofascist: Sergio Buarque de Holanda's figure in the critical reception of Raízes do Brasil by Antonio Candido and Jessé Souza" (Fapesp). Within the field of the history of ideas, develops a research about the critical reception of the essay "Raízes do Brasil" by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, focusing on the intellectual project of Antonio Candido and Jessé Souza.

Ana Luíza Vieira Kehdi. Graduanda em Letras. Realizou Iniciação Científica com o projeto “Orientalismo à brasileira: o pós-colonial em Clarice Lispector” (Fapesp), em que investiga, a partir do conto “A menor mulher do mundo”, diferentes configurações pós-coloniais ao redor do globo. Atua nos campos literatura brasileira e literatura comparada, com ênfase na Teoria Pós-colonial, Literatura-Mundial e Estudos brasileiros.

Lais Tardio Depintor. Undergraduate in Languages and Literatures. Developed an Initiation to Scientific Research with the project “Defeated modernization or resistance towards colonialism? Postcolonial analysis of Calunga by Jorge de Lima and Maleita by Lucio Cardoso” (Fapesp).

Laura Armbrust Castanho de Mello Arruda. Undergraduate in Languages and Literatures. Developed an Initiation to Scientific Research with the project “The progressivist pedagogy in the literature of Graciliano Ramos” (Fapesp).

Luís Fernando Moreira da Costa. Undergraduate in Literary Studies. Develops an Initiation to Scientific Research with the project “Viver é muito perigoso: A simbologia do diabo em Grande sertão: Veredas” (SAE). Has interests in the areas of Languages and Literatures, with experience on Brazilian Literature.

External members

Anita Martins Rodrigues de Moraes. Professor of Literary Theory at the Department of Language Sciences at the Fluminense Federal University. Her research interests focus on the question of representation of the other, particularly in the study of the relationship between literature and anthropology. Author of Para além das palavras: representação e realidade em Antonio Candido (Editora da Unesp, 2015) and O inconsciente teórico: investigando estratégias interpretativas de Terra Sonâmbula, de Mia Couto (Editora Annablume/ FAPESP, 2009). Has recently published the anthology O Brasil na poesia africana de língua portuguesa (Editora Kapulana, 2019) with Vima Lia Martin (USP).

Marcos Piason Natali. Associate Professor in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature at the Universidade de São Paulo. He has been visiting professor or researcher at UAM (Azcapotzalco-México) and UNAM (Mexico). He published the book "A política da nostalgia: Um estudo das formas do passado" and numerous papers and chapters on Juan Rulfo, Tununa Mercado, José María Arguedas, Mario Bellatin, the concept of fetishism, the debate over Monteiro Lobato´s work, and the notion of sacrifice in Jacques Derrida, along with the chapter on Latin America in "The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature". He works mainly on contemporary Latin American literature, deconstruction, postcolonial theory, and the relationship between literature and ethics.

Paulo de Sousa Aguiar de Medeiros. Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, with a focus on Modern and Contemporary World Literatures. He was Associate Professor at Bryant College (USA) and Professor at Utrecht University (Netherlands) before moving to Warwick. In 2011-2012 he was Keeley Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford and in 2013 and 2014 President of the American Portuguese Studies Association. From 2014 to 2017 he served as Director of Research. Current projects include a study on Postimperial Europe. Research interests include Critical Theory, World Literatures, Modernism and Postcolonial Studies, and Lusophone Literatures and Film. Author of Pessoa’s Geometry of the Abyss: Modernity and the Book of Disquiet (Oxford: Legenda).

Ana Mafalda Leite. Professor of African Literatures at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Coordinated the project “Narrativas Escritas e Visuais da Nação Pós-colonial” (CESA-FCT: PTDC/CPC-ELT/4939/2012) [2013-2015] and currently coordinates the project “Narrativas do Oceano Índico no Espaço Lusófono” (PTDC/CPCELT/4868/2014). She has published a wide collection of academic and poetic titles. Recently published, as editor, the book Narrating the Postcolonial Nation – Mapping Angola and Mozambique (Eds. Leite, Ana Mafalda / Owen, Hilary / Chaves, Rita / Apa, Livia).

Jessica Falconi. Associate Researcher in the Center of Studies on Africa en Development (CESA) at the University of Lisbon (Portugal). In 2018, she was a visiting professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), where she led the Center of Portuguese Language/Institute Camões. She has participated in several investigation projects and published in national and international journals in the areas of the African literatures and cinemas of Portuguese language, focusing on Mozambican literature. She is also a translator from Portuguese to Italian and has translated several literary works in Portuguese. 

Previous members

Christian Rodrigues Fischgold. Professor of Comparative Literature (Brazil - Africa) and Literary Theory. Current GCRF Visiting Researcher at the University of Manchester School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures (2020-21 UK), with research on the works by Kuikuros (Xingu) filmmakers. Post-doctorate in Theory and Literary History at the Institute of Language Studies (Unicamp 2019), with research on anthropophagy and neo-animism. PhD in Comparative Literature (UERJ 2018) regarding representations of the Makunaimã and Nambalista.

Marcelo Freddi Lotufo. Was a post-doc researcher in Literary Theory and History with the project "Brazilian literary criticism and world literature: from romanticism to today" (Fapesp). He was a reader of English literature at the University of Burgundy, France, and visiting researcher at the Ibero-American Institute, Berlin. His interests are romanticism, comparative literature, Latin American literature, Brazilian literature, contemporary poetry and translation. 

Felipe Bier. Was a post-doc researcher in Literary Theory and History with the project "The discomfort of tradition: Vidas Secas and the Metamorphoses of the backlands" (Fapesp). Has interest in the following areas: Brazilian literature, literature about the backlands, literary theory, history of the bourgeois novel, literature and Marxism, Brazilian social thought, psychoanalysis.

Publications

Selected works by members of Kaliban

MELO, A. C. A formação como nacional-ocidentalização. Revista Criação & Crítica, v. 1, n. 26, p. 136-148, 9 jun. 2020. Disponível em: http://www.revistas.usp.br/criacaoecritica/article/view/166230

BRUGIONI, E. Literaturas africanas comparadas: paradigmas críticos e representações em contraponto. Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 2019.

RUGGIERI, M. Ainda sobre o direito à literatura. Revista Criação & Crítica, v. 1, n. 26, p. 71-87, 9 jun. 2020. Disponível em: http://www.periodicos.usp.br/criacaoecritica/article/view/168080.

GALLO, F. B. G. Literatura, memória e narrativa histórica em Moçambique. Via Atlântica, n. 31, p. 249-266, 20 dez. 2017. Disponível em: http://www.periodicos.usp.br/viaatlantica/article/view/131981.

LOTUFO, M. F. A teoria da dependência como matriz para um diálogo latino-americano. Remate de Males, v. 36, n. 1, p. 31-50, 14 mar. 2016. Disponível em: https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/remate/article/view/8646451.

BIER, F. O amor no Grande Sertão: violência e utopia no anti-romance rosiano. Miscelânea: Revista de Literatura e Vida Social, v. 23, p. 259-273, 2018. Disponível em: http://seer.assis.unesp.br/index.php/miscelanea/article/view/1169.

CARDOSO, R. A questão do primitivismo e a representação dos povos indígenas em Antonio Candido. Revista Criação & Crítica, v. 1, n. 26, p. 55-70, 9 jun. 2020. Disponível em: https://www.revistas.usp.br/criacaoecritica/article/view/166215.

GUIMARÃES, B. D. Cultura e consumo na formação do Brasil: um diálogo entre Gilberto Freyre e Celso Furtado. Dissertação (Mestrado). Instituto de Economia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2019. Disponível em: http://143.106.10.215/handle/REPOSIP/334649.

NASCIMENTO, M. G. S. Quarto de despejo & Sala de visitas: Carolina de Jesus, intérprete do Brasil. Anais do XVI Encontro ABRALIC, 2018. Disponível em: https://abralic.org.br/anais-artigos/?id=2537.

ARDONDE, A. G. U.; ZAGO, K. P. C. Em tempos de colheita: uma leitura de Raízes do Brasil e de suas interpretações. Língua, Literatura e Ensino-ISSN 1981-6871, v. 12, p. 37-47, 2018.

WREC. Desenvolvimento combinado e desigual: Por uma nova teoria da literatura-mundial. Trad. Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice. Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 2020.

MORAES, Anita Martins Rodrigues. Para além das palavras: representação e realidade em Antonio Candido. SciELO-Editora UNESP, 2017.

NATALI, M. P. A política da nostalgia: um estudo das formas do passado. Nankin Editorial, 2006.

MEDEIROS, P. O silêncio das sereias: ensaio sobre o livro do desassossego. Tinta da China, 2015.

LEITE, A. M. Oralidades & escritas pós-coloniais: estudos sobre literaturas africanas. Eduerj, 2012.

FALCONI, J. “Para fazer um mar”: Literatura moçambicana e oceano Índico. Diacrítica, v. 27, n. 3, p. 77-92, 2013 .  Disponível em http://www.scielo.mec.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0807-89672013000300006&lng=pt&nrm=iso.

FISCHGOLD, C. R. Ruy Duarte de Carvalho e o paradoxo do moderno estado-nação angolano. Revista TransVersos, n. 15, p. 194-212, abr. 2019. Disponível em: https://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/transversos/article/view/42042.

Projects

Page under construction

Events

2023

9 de novembro de 2023
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)


13 de fevereiro de 2023
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (FLUL)


16 de fevereiro de 2023
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (FLUL)


23 de março de 2023
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)


24 de março de 2023
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)


13 de abril de 2023
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)


14 de abril de 2023
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)


20 de abril de 2023


04 de maio de 2023

SEMINÁRIO KALIBAN | 14h | Sala CL10
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)
“‘A Literatura adentra onde a história não chega?’ Notas da pesquisa de campo em Lisboa e Moçambique”
Doutora Fernanda Gallo – UNICAMP/Fapesp


18 de maio de 2023

SEMINÁRIO KALIBAN | 14h | Sala CL10
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)
“Da (semi)periferia vê-se o mundo – literaturas africanas no contexto de Literatura-Mundial”
Doutora Marta Banasiak – UNICAMP/Fapesp


25 de maio de 2023


SEMINÁRIO KALIBAN | 14h | Sala CL10
Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL/UNICAMP)
“Crise ambiental, literatura-mundial e o paradigma do Índico em João Paulo Borges Coelho”
Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice – UNICAMP/Fapesp


2020

Podcast “É preciso descolonizar o imaginário para entender literaturas africanas”, with Elena Brugioni. Available in: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrissima/2020/06/e-preciso-descolonizar-o-imaginario-para-entender-literaturas-africanas-reflete-professora.shtml


Conversation with João Paulo Borges Coelho, Mozambican writer and historian. Debate with Professors Paulo de Medeiros (University of Warwick) and Elena Brugioni (DTL/UNICAMP). Moderation by Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice (IEL/UNICAMP). Available in: https://youtu.be/JbK-nKRtRqs. Realizado em 05 de junho de 2020.


2019

8 May


24 May


5-6 September