Through music and poetry intermixed with critical thoughts we will offer a reading possibility on an historical figure of the 19th century, Francisco Félix de Souza. Inscribed in the cultural triangle of Africa-Portugal-Brazil, during his lifetime he rose from the position of an enslaved to a millionaire slave dealer. Today, his bedroom, in the National Museum of Benin, constitutes a place of prayer for the ones who view him as an Orishá, a sanctity to whom they offer their prayers, or a place of sheer embarrassment to the ones who cannot accept his actions throughout history. This performance plans to arise a discussion on the plurality of history readings confronted with our inner thoughts and perceptions of the subject.
Poetry and Music by Paula Gândara and João Carlos Rocha.
Paula Gândara has a Ph.D. in Lusophone Literatures with concentration on African and Brazilian Studies and presently teaches in the Spanish and Portuguese Department of Miami University. Author of Construindo Germano Almeida (Nova Vega, 2008), a major study on arguably one of the best writers of Lusophone Africa published with the support of the Luso-American Foundation and the National Library of Cape Verde. She is a singer and a published poet, author of multiple articles published in Portugal, Brazil and the US and her present research focuses on the relations of Portugal, Brazil and Africa in the 19th century.
Sponsored by Department of Spanish and Portuguese
