Territorializing the Indian Ocean: transnational imaginaries and World-Literature in João Paulo Borges Coelho

• Grant number: 18/20953-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2019
• End date: December 03, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Elena Brugioni
• Grantee: Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 19/07859-3 - Territorializing the Indian Ocean: questions on world-literature, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

This research project is situated in the fields of Indian Ocean Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and World-Literature and aims at analyzing the two short stories books Índicos Indícios I - Setentrião and Índicos Indícios II - Meridião (2005) by Mozambican contemporary writer João Paulo Borges Coelho. The aim is to investigate to what degree the Indian Ocean, as transnational geography and as an alternative critical paradigm, represents a substantial critical framework for the study of African Literatures on a global scale. Challenging the critical approaches grounded in spatial and linguistic perspectives, the Indian Ocean paradigm will be analyzed as critical cartography, through a theoretical articulation with the field the World-literary Studies, addressing the theme of the sea as a critical framework to rethink concepts of nation, territory, culture, and identity in contemporary Mozambican literature.