Alterity on the margins: a study of As Noites Marcianas, by Fausto Cunha

Author(s)

Ramiro Giroldo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2012-10-18

Examining board members

Jefferson Agostini Mello; Mário César Lugarinho; Gustavo Silveira Ribeiro; Rosana Cristina Zanelatto Santos; Alfredo Luiz Paes de Oliveira Suppia

• Advisor: Jaime Ginzburg

Abstract

This work focuses on the anthology As Noites Marcianas (1960), by Fausto Cunha. The short stories will be read as an attempt to deal with, in the aesthetic dimension, tensions between the literary works acknowledged by the literary canon and those which are not. There\'s interest in addressing the generic categorization that fits the anthology as a form of alterity, on the margins of the literature officially accepted as such. To evaluate the option for a genre filiation to science fiction in short-stories that, thematically, seem to cast a negative look to the uniformization of the individual as promoted by the dominant forces, this work uses propositions by Darko Suvin about the subversive potential of the science fiction and about the co-optation by the cultural industry of literary manifestations originally capable of questioning the parametres of the officially endorsed literature. The concept of otherness will be discussed in connection with the familiarly strange, the unheimlich effect proposed by Sigmund Freud. In the light of propositions by Florestan Fernandes in Mudanças Sociais no Brasil, the work will evaluate how As Noites Marcianas deals with conservative instances as well as the forces which try to subvert them. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/00671-7 - Marginal otherness: a study of As Noites Marcianas, by Fausto Cunha
• Grantee: Ramiro Giroldo
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate