Transculturality and memory in the Black Diaspora: a comparative reading of Salgado Maranhão and George Elliott Clarke's poetics

• Grant number: 17/22900-4
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): May 01, 2018
• Effective date (End): July 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal researcher: Paulo César Andrade da Silva
• Grantee: Paulo César Andrade da Silva
• Host: Odile Cisneros
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Alberta, Canada

Abstract

Considering the hypothesis according to which there are transtextuality aspects that create a relation among black literature texts (BERND, 1988), this paper aims at investigating the means by which elements from the same cultural base of the Black Diaspora are represented in the African Canadian and in the African Brazilian poetry. The research compares Brazil and Canada and points the common fact that both countries were colonized by European nations and carry cultural diversity in their roots. In addition to describing and analyzing technical and formal procedures, common themes and motives found in the poetry of George Elliott Clarke (1960) and Salgado Maranhão (1953) will be analysed in order to observe the dialogue both poets establish with transculturation and with the diaspora thematics at the American cultural-ethnic crossroads. The main common lines of force as well as the discursive characteristics will be investigated, specially the way each poet rework diasporic issues and build their personal mythology, references and themes (such as the land, the myth of origins, ancestral memory, etc) through poetic language and in similar social, historical and economic contexts, still considering their ideologies and identitary bonds. Finally, such analysis of contemporary literary production of Black Diaspora in the Americas should follow comparative and interdisciplinar methodology.