The Environment in Brazilian Culture

Examining Brazilian artists’ engagement with the natural world from 1900 to the present 

The Environment in Brazilian Culture explores the centrality of the natural world in shaping Brazilian literature, cinema, and art since 1900. This collection, exceptional in its representation of material from diverse locations and cultures within Brazil, as well as in its investigation of a range of artistic mediums and genres, portrays the human connection to nature in the most biodiverse country in the world.    

From the forests of the Amazon to the mountains of the Serra do Mar, this volume examines Brazilian depictions of different geographical regions and the plants and animals found in each. Contributors pay particular attention to the environment’s integral place in Indigenous identity and art. They also discuss artistic references to environmental devastation, underscoring the connection between ecological degradation and contemporary socioeconomic inequality. Works discussed in these chapters include novels by Itamar Vieira Junior and Maria José Silveira, poetry by Marília Floôr Kosby, Guarani and Bororo verbal arts, Huni Kuĩ documentary films, and paintings by Candido Portinari.

These wide-ranging analyses highlight the value of Brazilian cultural production to critical plant and animal studies, posthumanism, and the environmental humanities. And, in grappling with Brazil’s extractivist past, they search for alternatives to a predatory approach to the land and its inhabitants, looking for pathways to environmental justice in the Anthropocene.  

Contributors: Victoria Saramago | Leila Lehnen | Rex P. Nielson | Maria Esther Maciel | Valeria Meiller | Benjamin Burt | Juliana Luna Freire | Nuno Marques | Cinthya Torres | Jens Andermann | Malcolm K. McNee | Patricia Isabel Lontro Marder Vieira | Martiniano Alcantara Neto