Simões, Julio Campos
Research Interests:
Francophone Literatures , cultures and media in Africa
Current Project :
Spreading "Africanism" : A comparison between the folktale collections of Wilhelm Bleek , Joel Chandler Harris and Silvio Romero (1864-1885)
This study seeks to trace a comparative analysis of the collections of folktales of African origin by three notable folklorists of the second half of the nineteenth century published between 1864 and 1885: Reynard the Fox in South Africa (1864) by the German philologist Wilhelm Bleek, Uncle Remus (1881 and 1883) by the North-American journalist Joel Chandler Harris and Contos Populares do Brasil (1885), by the Brazilian literary critic Silvio Romero. Bleek’s seminal work, produced under English colonial rule in South Africa, influenced the compilations of black populations’ folktales in Brazil and the United States in a context characterised by emancipation from slavery and the high visibility of racial ideas. The methodology of comparative literature is used to approach these compilations, their context of publication and the influences and motivations of their authors. The research aims to examine the discursive transit of racial ideologies between the collection and how it gave way to cultural interest in Africa, the so-called “Africanism”. By doing so, it hopes to increase the awareness of the role of folklore in promoting “Africanist” studies and contribute to the growing production of critical repertoire on the race question in the development of African and African-American studies.