Brazilian Modernism and Cultural Criticism

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to disclose some issues of Brazilian Modernism (in the 1920’s) and to discuss how the leading exponents of this movement attempted to shape a new and authentic way of evaluating the Brazilian national project, showing their views on cultural criticism as a whole. This paper is also an attempt to understand how contemporary criticism re-evaluates this aesthetic and critical project. The late 1970`s and early 1980`s can be seen as fundamental to all the changes in scenarios, images and discourses that took place in Brazil. These changes were not limited to the composition of pragmatic, academic and disciplinary scenarios, but there was an attempt to bring about changes in the face of Brazil. The new agenda of civil society began to be redefined and the relations between public and private worlds were in the spotlight again. The end of the authoritarian military rule was not only a rupture with the current institutional pattern, but it altered deeply the way of thinking about the country.