Editorial Note

Editorial Note

It is a great pleasure to see these articles ready to go to press in this current issue 59.1. For several reasons, some of these studies took longer to move through review. I am grateful to all of our reviewers who make the peer review process work and who donate their time and expertise to contribute to the quality of our journal. This issue brings together articles on an array of topics, with the core of this issue focused on Brazilian cultural and literary studies.

Our opening article is by Paulo de Medeiros, “Ilhas, ilhas, ilhas.” He provides a dialectical reading of Raul Brandão’s As ilhas desconhecidas (1926) that focuses on its social critique. As such, Medeiros examines Brandão’s writing about the idea of the Azores and Madeira, refusing a traditional description, but rather, similar to Barthes’s views of Japan, seeing the islands as a condition for writing and as a foreigner with a feeling of alienation.

In the next article, “Pernambuco and Bahia’s Musical ‘War’: Contemporary Music, Intraregional Rivalry, and Branding in Northeastern Brazil,” Falina Enriquez, drawing from ethnographic research, discusses the long-standing music rivalry between Pernambuco and Bahia in the twenty-first century, in particular in reference to a global marketplace and the cultural commodification of musical production. Her work focuses on the one hand on how Pernambucanos perceive and characterize Bahian music and dance forms, and how they interpret their neighboring state’s artistic performances in terms of race, racialization, stereotypes, class, and stigma. On the other, Enriquez discusses how this musical rivalry provides a case study for uncovering and understanding Pernambucan multiculturalism as shaped by classist and antiBlack ideologies.

Nina Longinovic’s article, “Polyphonic Autofiction and Authorship in Tatiana Salem Levy’s A chave de casa, discusses Salem Levy’s novel as dialogical autofiction, the original way in which this novel re-invents the genre by defying the singular “I,” and how the “anxiety of authorship” (Gilbert and Gubar) experienced by female authors can be overcome through alternatives to a revolt against patriarchy. Longinovic also discusses the different expressions of trauma that are woven throughout the text and unite its female protagonists.

In the next essay, “Defunto autor e clerks defunct. Charles Lamb nas Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas” by Daniel Lago Monteiro, the author discusses the connection between Lamb’s fictional series Essays of Elia where the narrator presents himself as a “clerk defunct” and its influence on Machado de Assis’s novel. Central to this study is the comparison between the narrators of the two texts and the concept of death as a literary device. Monteiro also proves that Machado de Assis most likely read Charles Lamb’s original text even though a copy of the French translation by Dépret was found in Machado’s library.

In “Globalização, técnica e modernidade no Rio de Janeiro das primeiras três décadas do século XX,” Pedro Lopes de Almeida compares travel narratives by foreigners with the literary representation of Rio de Janeiro by Machado de Assis, João do Rio, and Lima Barreto, along with select films from the early twentieth century. Lopes de Almeida provides an overview of the historical context with a focus on the Passos urban reforms and the presence of foreign technology and accidents as circulated in the media.

We close this issue with an article by Matthias Röhrig Assunção, “Street Capoeira and the Memorialization of Slavery in Rio de Janeiro” that examines the reemergence of street capoeira performances known as rodas in Rio de Janeiro. Following a historical overview, this study focuses on the years surrounding the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics that were held respectively in 2014 and 2016. Through the performances of the collective Rio Street Roda Connection (2012–2016), Assunção discusses the significance of space as related to these street performances and proposes a reading of capoeira as a catalyst to engage the historical weight of slavery and its memorialization.

As always, I am grateful to the wonderful LBR editorial team who move the journal forward with their ideas and dedication. At the time of writing, we bid farewell to one of our assistants to the editors, Carolina Alvim Ferreira, whose career is taking her away from Madison, and welcome a new assistant to the editors, Thao Kahn, a graduate student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese working towards her MA in Portuguese. We look forward to receiving your submissions in the areas of our journal and especially from scholars working in Portuguese-speaking Africa in all disciplines.

Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez

Executive Editor