| Sumario: | "The Ripple Effect: Gender and Race in Brazilian Culture and Literature adopts a comparative, multilayered, and interdisciplinary line of research to examine social values and cultural mores in Brazil from the first decades of the twentieth century to the present. It is with one eye in the present, another in the future, and always identifying silhouettes and shadows of the past that The Ripple Effect surveys several expressive cultures and literary manifestations of Brazil, analyzing the historical, cultural, religious, and interactive space that they occupy as artifacts of the country's national identity. It uses the martial art-dance-ritual capoeira as a lynchpin to disclose historical ambiguities and the negotiation of cultural and literary boundaries within the context of the ideological construct of a mestizo nation. It analyzes female representations in popular music, religion, and visual media, examines laws governing gender in soccer and capoeira, and discusses honor killings and other types of violence against women. It also appraises the contributions that some iconic female figures have made to the development of Brazil's distinctive cultural and literary production. Drawing on more than fifteen years of field, archival, and library research, the book discussions offer new interpretative venues. It applies discourse analysis to examine case studies, performances, and cultural events and provides close readings of lyrics of songs and literary texts. By focusing on gender and race to discuss Brazilian society and literature, The Ripple Effect broadens the critical focus and the methodological scope of previous scholarship and offers new interpretative venues on Brazilian popular culture. It also reveals how compellingly literature and other arts can be used to document cultural norms, catalogue life experiences, and analyze complex constructions of social values, ideas, and belief systems"--
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