Italian migration to Brazil has had a lasting impact on both the country of origin in the Mediterranean and the destination country west of the Atlantic, forging a bond between the two cultural areas that is often overlooked by German-language Romance Studies due to the structural ties between Italian Studies and French Studies, and Lusitanian Studies and Hispanic or Latin American Studies. The cultural context of Italo-Brazilian relations is diverse and complex, and ranges over several centuries.

The workshop aims at a narrowly defined subfield of this topic, namely the visits to Italy of Brazilian intellectuals in the 20th century. For many Brazilians, Italy became a country of longing, which intellectuals (authors, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, etc.) in particular liked to visit when the opportunity arose. What drove these travellers is manifold: the exploration of their ancestors’ country of origin, the search for the country of origin of the Romance-speaking world, an art-historical or literary enthusiasm for Roman antiquity, or external factors such as wars, exile or diplomatic assignments.

From Sergio Buarque de Holanda, Murilo Mendes and Rubem Braga, to Clarice Lispector and Indá Soares Casanova, to Chico Buarque, Glauber Rocha and Júlio Cesar Monteiro Martins, there are numerous names of Brazilian intellectuals who stayed in Italy and documented their stay on film, processed it in literature or communicated it by post. The workshop aims to bring together specific research on the travels to Italy of Brazilian writers and filmmakers in the 20th century and to identify possible intersections in the perception of this country “through the Brazilian lens”.

The event will take place on 14 January 2022 at the University of Cologne. Presentations should be in German or English. Please send your abstract (max. 400 words), together with a short CV to: janek.scholz@uni-koeln.de Proposals for papers will be accepted until 15 November 2021.