The Department of English and the English Graduate Student Association present “The Erotic Politics of the Lusiads,” a research lecture by Assistant Professor Carmen Nocentelli on Friday, Sept. 25, at 2 p.m. in the Student Union Building, fiesta rooms.
Photo: Carmen Nocentelli
The presentation traces the literary and historical contexts of the Isle of Love episode – quite literally the climax of Luís de Camões’s famous epic poem, “The Lusiads” – locating the first in the reception of Ovid, the second in the experience of colonialism. Imaginatively engaging with the intermarriage policies that characterized Portugal’s early expansion into Asia, the Isle of Love episode elaborates a power erotics that delicately registers the cleavages and contradictions of the imperial enterprise.
Nocentelli earned a doctorate in comparative literature at Stanford University and holds a joint appointment in the Department of English and the Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies program at UNM. She has published in Nuevo Texto Crítico, the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, and Rereading the Black Legend, and has an article forthcoming in PMLA. Her current book project focuses on the role of interracial romance narratives in the discourses of Europe’s eastward expansion.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jesse Alemán, Department of English, (505) 277-3209.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at September 23, 2009 12:24 PM