Reading João Paulo Borges Coelho's literature through the lenses of ecocriticism and Indian Ocean Studies

• Grant number: 22/03635-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: October 30, 2022
• End date: April 29, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Comparative Literature
• Principal Investigator: Elena Brugioni
• Grantee: Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice
• Supervisor: Ana Mafalda de Morais Leite
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/12785-6 - Environmental crisis, world-literature and the Indian Ocean paradigm in João Paulo Borges Coelho, BP.MS

Abstract

This Research Project for Internship Abroad (BEPE) consists in the realization of a period of research in libraries, museums and archives located at academic and cultural centers in the University of Lisbon, with the aim to collect, study and review qualitative data which will allow for a deeper understanding on the environmental issues relating to the Indian Ocean world in general and to Mozambique's social, political and literary history in particular. As stated in the main Research Project, the relationship between Mozambique and the Indian Ocean is fundamental to Borges Coelho's literary work and especially visible in Índicos Indícios (2005a; 2005b) and Ponta Gea (2017), where the element of water occupies a central role and suggests innovative ways with which to imagine and understand the relations between human, nonhuman and nature. This holistic way of grasping human and nonhuman entanglements in Borges Coelho's literature highlights the multiplicity and relationality of both dimensions, thus contributing to one of the main focuses of debate across Maritime Studies today: the need of analyzing the ways in which - and to what extent - aesthetic narratives as well as historical and contemporary practices from coastal societies can reshape and challenge conventional nation-based concepts and borders. (AU)