Overview
A classic of Brazilian literature is twinned with an overheated tract in which tropical delirium swallows up Western philosophy. Both attack the decolonial question with poetic ferocity, ignited by the moment when colonialist rationality meets its limits in the "magnificent disorder" of the Amazon jungle.
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Described in Eduardo Viveiros de Castroās foreword as "no longer an interpretation of Brazil but an interpenetration with Brazil," Jean-Christophe Goddardās strange theory-fiction plunges Western philosophy into the great American schizophrenia, where its ordered categories are devored by uncontainable contaminationsāfirst and foremost the rainforest itself, a "monstrosity unapproachable by the cogito."
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In 1664, the Portuguese Bento de Espinosa wrote of his terrifying hallucination of "a scabby black Brazilian." But rather than a vision of "the Other," the dream figure was a frightful glimpse of Bentoās own duplicity. Upon adopting the "clean white nickname" of Benedict de Spinoza, the philosopher cut ties with his homeland and its colonial misadventures, repudiating this specter that flees along the lines of migration: "Spinoza is American ā¦ the journey is intensive." And in his wake, a cannibalized cast of conceptual personae are sucked into Goddardās Pernambucan delirium: Franny Deleuze, Dina Levi-Strauss, Chaya Ohloclitorispector, Galli Mathiasā¦
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The rainforest also precipitates a deregulation of the senses in Verdant Inferno, Alberto Rangelās classic 1904 work of Brazilian literature. In Rangelās astonishing tales, this "poet-engineer" sent into the dark interior as a state representative records his encounters in a style that shimmers between objective documentary and visionary limit experience.
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This book title, Verdant Inferno/A Scabby Black Brazilian, ISBN: 9781915103086, by Alberto Rangel, Jean-Christophe Goddard, Eduardo Viveiros De Castro, Euclides da Cunha, published by MIT Press (February 27, 2024) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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