MAPPING FOR A CHAIR IN BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

Abstract

This article offers an autobiographical, critical, and pedagogical reflection on the establishment of the Brazilian Literature Department at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. Starting from Regina Dalcastagnè’s question—“How far does Brazil extend, and what do we agree to understand by ‘literature’?”—the author reconstructs her journey as a student, researcher, translator, and teacher-in-training to position affect as the primary driving force behind research and teaching. The text examines the historical and geographical reasons why Colombia has historically viewed Brazil as a “distant neighbor” and details the personal journey that led the author to bridge that distance: from her teenage discovery of Brazilian music and poetry to her graduate studies in Argentina and Brazil. Finally, the author presents the design of a course that challenges canonical and Eurocentric frameworks through the inclusion of an expanded, interdisciplinary corpus.