Transatlantic margins: trans identities in 21st century portuguese language literatures

• Grant number: 21/13412-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): January 31, 2022
• Effective date (End): July 28, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Other Vernacular Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Vicente Valentim
• Grantee: Marcelo Branquinho Massucatto Resende
• Supervisor: Emanuelle Rodrigues dos Santos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Birmingham, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 19/07304-1 - Transatlantic margins: trans identities in 21st Portuguese Language literatures, BP.DR

Abstract

This research aims to understand trans identities (a term that encompasses transsexuality, transgenderism and transvestility) as artistic manifestations expressed in Brazilian, Portuguese and Cape Verdean literature, from the 2000s onwards, in order to ascertain the way in which the aforementioned identities have been concomitantly constructed in Portuguese-speaking contexts, such as Cape Verde and Portugal, countries whose recent literary productions include novels such as Cape Verdean Marginais (2010), by Evel Rocha, and Trans Iberic Love (2013), by Portuguese writer Raquel Freire. In both, there is a presence of transgender and transsexual characters. Throughout the 20th century, Brazilian literature produced trans characters and autobiographies by trans authorship, in order to build a literary tradition that supports the way it is aesthetically and literarily represented in contemporary texts, such as Deixei ele lá e vim (2006), by Elvira Vigna, narrated in the first person by a transvestite character. Each of the novels have a character that is located in a specific axis within trans identities: the transgender Fusco, from Marginais; transsexual José, from Trans Iberic Love, and transvestite Shirley Marlone, from Deixei ele lá e vim. The three novels make up the corpus of research, which will be read from theoretical references that encompass post-structuralism, queer theory and spatiality, which allow the reading of works departing from the construction of identities. (AU)