The seminar focuses on the processes that brought feather ornaments to be identified globally as one of the most representative elements of the imaginary on Brazilian natives. It develops along a chronological and thematic path that explores in detail different contexts on the one, as well as on the other, side of the Atlantic Ocean by relying on different type of sources (iconographic, textual, material and oral) and by comparing perspectives of various character (anthropological, historical, colonial, decolonial). Since the very first decades of the invasion of the Americas, across the Enlightenment and Positivist periods, and up to present days, we shall see how European, Brazilian and indigenous agents have been appropriating feather artifacts and their symbology to produce heterogeneous discourses aimed at supporting specific ideological and political positions. Eventually, the four lectures that compose the seminar wish to offer the tools to reflect critically on the processes through which imaginaries are constituted over time and space and on key concepts such as stereotype and ethnicity.
Lectures:
- Imaginaries on Brazilian Natives: a theoretical and methodological tool kit
- “Brand New Worlds”
- With Natives and Travelers along Amazonian Rivers
- A Broken Mirror: between stereotype and ethnicity