Date: June 12, 2019
Location: Professor Baesse Auditorium – FAFICH/UFMG

The presentation will address, from the perspective of the sociology of violence, works by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, the author who originated the detective novel genre, and the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, world-famous for his works about detective Sherlock Holmes. These works featured recurring themes of money, power, sex, and social differentiation and distinction.

In the 20th century, during the Great Depression of 1929, the “hard boiled” novels of Hammett, Chandler, James Cain, and Patricia Highsmith appeared. “At the same time, Kafka’s novel of injustice or opacity prefigures the totalitarianisms of the 20th century. Since the first crisis of modernity, we have found in Kafka’s work the expression of the metamorphoses of injustice and disciplinary and bureaucratic power in contemporary society,” emphasizes Professor José Vicente.

Within the scope of Brazilian literature, the presentation will cover authors ranging from Euclides da Cunha to Ruben Fonseca. José Vicente will specifically explore the detective novel in Brazil, which, according to him, “acquires density and cultural expressiveness, from Garcia Roza, Tony Belloto, Patrícia Mello, Delgado Nogueira, Reginaldo Prandi, and others.”

Speaker: Professor José Vicente Tavares dos Santos, director of the Latin American Institute of Advanced Studies (ILEA) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Panelists: Professors Romulo Monte Alto and Georg Otte from the Faculty of Letters.