Literary Materialisms addresses what has become a fundamental concern in the last decade: how do we today define literary studies as an academic discipline and literature as a relevant object of study? Avoiding unproductive proclamations, this volume unites new materialist critical thinking with a commitment to fundamental principles.

Milton Ohata reviews Roberto Schwarz’s Seqüências Brasileiras [Brazilian Episodes]. After the important pamphlet Duas meninas [Two Girls] , Roberto Schwarz returns to the scene with Seqüências Brasileiras, which brings together writings published from 1988-1998. His essays, enemies of preestablished hierarchies, unashamed before mythologies and fashions — always explosive, though discreet — tend to risk untravelled roads, passing by the techniques and fashions common among specialists.

Milton Ohata reviews Luiz Felipe de Alencastro’s O trato dos viventes: Formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul [Mortal Traffic: The Formation of Brazil in the South Atlantic]. O trato dos viventes begins from a simple but consequential premise: that in the history of Portuguese America, the whole is not the sum of its parts; that is, it cannot be understood by merely combining the histories of its various regimes. Rather, local history is to be interpreted in the light of its (...) effective connections, in reciprocal determination, with the history of capitalism — in which the slave trade played an indispensible part. (shrink)