Black intellectuals in Brazilian periphery at the end of the 19th century (Maranhão)

Abstract

My Ph.D research is centered on the trajectory of Black intellectuals maranhenses Raul Astolfo Marques (1876-1918) and José do Nascimento Moraes (1882-1958) at the end of the 20th century. The main objective of this investigation is to understand the ways the social and racial origins of these writers determined their possibilities of intellectual recognition, as well as their aesthetic creations in a period where the slavery egress population became a relevant political subject on the formation of modern Brazilian society, consolidated in the so-called Primeira República (1889-1930). My hypothesis is that the emergence and the projection of black maranhenses intellectuals in the provincial scene are related, in particular, to the process of Maranhão exclusion from the Brazilian economic and erudite culture mainstream. In this sense, my stay in Princeton as Visiting Student Research Collaborator aims to: 1) To study methodological research strategies that intersect biographies and social history as, for example, that of Albert O. Hirshman written by professor Jeremy Aldeman; 2) To pursue my readings on post-abolition in the United States and its impact on the life and work of black American intellectuals; 3) To research the rich and wide bibliography on the history of Maranhão existing in the various libraries of the University of Princeton, which are rare materials and barely accessible in Brazil. (AU)