The place of Indigenous authors in the Brazilian literary scene

General presentation

In May 2025, Université Paris Nanterre launched a call for proposals aimed at federating research communities involving the alliance's foreign universities. This project was awarded a grant from the EDUC network to organize scientific events, enabling the development of partnerships on a European scale around scientific and technological projects, and generate preliminary results on common research and innovation topics. 

On March 31, 2026, the department of Lusophone studies CRILUS (Paris Nanterre University) and Cátedra Aquilino Ribeiro (Masarykova Univerzita) are organizing an international study day about "The place of Indigenous authors in the Brazilian literary scene" in the Max Weber Building (room 2) at the University Paris Nanterre.

The struggle of Brazil's indigenous peoples for recognition of their civil rights, which is currently receiving a great deal of media coverage, has been intensifying for over half a century. The establishment of a legal framework with the promulgation of the Statute of the Indigenous, in the 1988 constitution, made their critical living conditions visible and flagrant, in particular their demographic decline, and strengthened, at national level, their struggle for recognition of their cultures, identities and territories. While their first demands were political and social in nature, notably for the homologation of their lands, they would later demand the emancipation of their knowledge and representations.
   

Presentation of the conferences

9:00 a.m. – Welcome to participants

9:30–10:00 a.m. – Opening and introduction to the study day
Graça dos Santos and José Manuel Esteves, Directors of CRILUS; Danièle Kahn, Director of UFR LCE; Yan Dalla Pria, Vice President for Research; Sandra Assunção and Eva Batličková (organizers)

10:00–10:40 a.m. – Opening lecture
Rita Olivieri Godet, University of Rennes 2:
“The emergence and consolidation of indigenous voices in contemporary Brazilian literature:from object of representation to subject of enunciation.”
Moderator: Eva Batličková

10:40–11:00 a.m. – Coffee break

11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Round table 1: What can indigenous writing achieve? Literature as an instrument of identity reconstruction(s)
Brigitte Thiérion, Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3: “Cosmogony and rewriting in Brazilian indigenous literature.”
Ilana Heineberg, Bordeaux Montaigne University: "Mediadores entre dois mundos : o perspectivismo em Os urubus não esquecem, de Pedro Cesarino" / Mediators between two worlds: perspectivism in Os urubus não esquecem, by Pedro Cesarino."
Héloïse Behr, Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3: "Literature and authorship: literary space as a place for the expression of indigenous identities."
Eva Batličková, Masarykova Univerzita: "Identidades indígenas no processo da sua reconstrução : o papel da literatura Indígena nascomunidades e no cenário da inovação da literatura nacional ". / "Indigenous identities in the process of their reconstruction: the role of Indigenous literature in communities and in the context of innovation in national literature."
Moderator: Sandra Assunção

1:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. – Lunch break

2:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. – Round table 2: Breaking down barriers: Indigenous voices in music and cinema in Brazil
Pedro Mandagará Ribeiro, University of Brasília:  “Demarcação do corpo: sobre vídeos de Kaê Guajajara, Uýra Sodoma e Olinda Tupinambá.” / “Demarcation of the body: on videos by Kaê Guajajara, Uýra Sodoma, and Olinda Tupinambá.”
Geórgia Cynara Coelho and Rafael de Almeida, State University of Goiás: “Paisagens da escuta: fabulação, território e mediação no documentário contemporâneo brasileiro.” / "Landscapes of listening: storytelling, territory, and mediation in contemporary Brazilian documentary film."
Moderator: Gonçalo Cordeiro

3:45-4:15 p.m. – Coffee break

4:15-4:45 p.m. – Closing lecture
Trudruá Dorrico Makuxi, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul: “Eu sou macuxi e outras histórias” / "I am Macuxi and other stories".
Moderator: Brigitte Thiérion

5:00 p.m. – Closing reception
Study day organized with the support of the European Digital UniverCity (EDUC) alliance and the Research Commission of Paris Nanterre University.

 

Project Leaders

MCF, Sandra Assunção, Université Paris Nanterre
MCF, Eva Batličková, Masaryk University