Lost borders: challengers from the black diasporas in Portugal and Germany to the (still) philological groundings of cultural studies

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/va.v26.n1.2025.207008

Keywords:

philology, afro-descendant literature, Portugal, Germany

Abstract

Despite the already at least three decades long dismissal of the conception of modern identities by post-modern and constructivist theory, as well as by postcolonial studies, literary and cultural studies still cling to philological understandings of culture grounded on their respective connection to a language and to national borders. This not only stands in contradiction with theory but is also inadequate to deal with the particular challenges given by black diasporic literature. Based on some examples from Portugal and Germany, this article points out to some of the challenges that must urgently be faced to undo the power biases that the philological perspective still creates.

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Author Biography

  • Catarina Martins, Universidade de Coimbra

    Assistant Professor of German Studies of the Faculty of Letters and Research Fellow of the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. She was lecturer for Portuguese, for several years, at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. She holds a Ph. D. in German Literature from the University of Coimbra (2008). Her dissertation is entitled Modernismo. Ensaísmo. Imperialismo. Robert Müller e ‘A Corrente Amazónica da Alma Humana’. Her current research interests include comparative literature, German and Austrian literature and culture, post colonialism and feminism. Within these cultural contexts and from these theoretical frameworks she analyses predominantly the problematics of the representation of violence. She also studies african subjects in portuguese literature, african francophone and anglophone literatures, in particular by women writers, concentrating on feminist questions, on the one hand, and on the representation of childhood, on the other. She has published several articles in all these research fields.

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Published

2025-05-22

Issue

Vol. 26 No. 1 (2025): Afro-descendant Literatures in Brazil and Portugal

Section

Dossiê 45: As Literaturas de autoria afrodescendente no Brasil e em Portugal

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Copyright (c) 2025 Catarina Martins

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How to Cite

MARTINS, Catarina. Lost borders: challengers from the black diasporas in Portugal and Germany to the (still) philological groundings of cultural studies. Via Atlântica, São Paulo, v. 26, n. 1, p. 337–367, 2025. DOI: 10.11606/va.v26.n1.2025.207008. Disponível em: https://revistas.usp.br/viaatlantica/article/view/207008.. Acesso em: 3 jan. 2026.