%0 Journal Article
%T Under the Sign of an Evil Power: Jacob Burckhardt and Alfredo Bosi
%A Newcomb
%A Robert Patrick
%J Ellipsis
%D 2009
%I American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA)
%X For those interested in comparative approaches to the work of Brazilian literary and cultural critic Alfredo Bosi (b. 1936), Swiss cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) may not represent an immediately intuitive pairing. Yet the Bosi-Burckhardt comparison proves fruitful for those interested in the broad, conflicted relationship between power and cultural production, particularly as concerns the contradiction apparent in culture¡¯s simultaneous position as the product and assumed critic of power. In this article I argue that Burckhardt¡¯s vision of power as ¡°evil¡± works to lend coherence to Bosi¡¯s simultaneous insistence on culture¡¯s embeddedness within (and indebtedness to) socio-historical power structures, and his affirmation of the critic¡¯s ethical obligation to resist these same structures. I focus particularly on Burckhardt¡¯s Reflections on Universal History (1905) and Judgements on History and Historians (1929), and on Bosi¡¯s C¨¦u, inferno (1988), Dial¨¦tica da coloniza  o (1992), and Literatura e resist¨ºncia (2002).
%K Brazilian literature
%K Alfredo Bosi
%K Jacob Burckhardt
%K literature and power
%U http://www.ellipsis-apsa.com/Volume_7-Newcomb_files/Newcomb_ellipsis_7_2009%20copy.pdf