Viviane Carvalho Da Annunciação

This book explores the role of science in the short stories of Machado de Assis, focusing on works such as ‘O Alienista’ (1882), ‘A Sereníssima República’ (1882), and ‘Idéias de Canário’ (1899). It examines how Machado uses scientific theories as literary and sociological devices to critique modern state institutions, including hospitals, prisons and government-sponsored medical projects. His skepticism extends to the liberal and politically independent scientific discourse of late nineteenth-century Brazil, a period of profound political, economic and social change. By questioning the idealized figure of the rational scientist, Machado exposes the racial and economic hierarchies upheld by the dominant intelligentsia. Madness, egocentrism and the use of fantastic elements—such as talking animals and absurd situations—engage with the ancient tradition of the fable to highlight social tensions. The result is an ethically charged poetics of unreason, shaped by an ironic skepticism toward Romantic nationalism, literary naturalism, and scientific positivism, particularly in relation to race, gender, class, and nationality. Perfect for scholars of literature, history, and cultural studies, this book reinterprets Machado de Assis as a radical thinker whose fiction offers a penetrating critique of race, gender and class in the making of modern Brazil. It can also serve as an initial study for many interdisciplinary interpretations of his work, opening new perspectives on his engagement with science and politics.

Brazil in the 1920s was going through many transformations. A new republic was shedding old moralities. Agrarianism was urbanizing. Social mobility was cutting across classes. A nation in search of a new culture was reaching out to the sophistication of Europe. In this setting, M rio de Andrade tells us the story of a Brazilian teen and a German woman in her mid-20s. He was born into a wealthy family; she was trying to make a living away from her country, carrying the emotional baggage of the Great War in the Old World. He was a student, she a teacher. But her lessons would soon go beyond language, literature, and music. And she'd also learn a little something herself. Brazilian culture, in those heady boisterous years, was complicated. Love was taking on new meaning. Could love be a transitive verb, uniting subject and object? Or would it best be left intransitive, a subject all alone with an emotion? M rio de Andrade's unique use of language and his insights into life contributed to an upheaval in not only in Brazilian culture but in Brazilian literature, inspiring the nation's Modernist movement. Ana Lessa-Schmidt reflects that Modernist style in her careful and creative translation.