Banca de DEFESA: ALTIERRES SANTOS DE MEDEIROS

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : ALTIERRES SANTOS DE MEDEIROS
DATE: 23/07/2026
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: googlemeet
TITLE:

Cultural memory in the prose of José Bezerra Gomes and in the poetry of Celestino Alves.

KEY WORDS:

Cultural Memory; Literature and Memory; Sertanejo Identity; Memory Construction; Seridó; José Bezerra Gomes; Celestino Alves.

PAGES: 96
BIG AREA: Lingüística, Letras e Artes
AREA: Letras
SUBÁREA: Literatura Comparada
SUMMARY:

This thesis analyzes the relationships between literature and cultural memory by investigating the discursive construction of symbolic elements of seridoense cultural diversity. The study focuses on the works Os Brutos (1938) and A Porta e o Vento (1974), by José Bezerra Gomes, and O Nordeste e as Secas (1983), by Celestino Alves, taking them as reading keys that start from a local specificity to illuminate a comprehensive cultural universe of the “Sertão”. The research arises from the observation of a gap in the critical fortune about the authors, whose works were rarely investigated systematically as complex agents and artifacts of cultural memory. This study thus seeks to demonstrate how Gomes’s (2005) prose and Alves’s (1983) poetry function as mnemonic devices for negotiating and reconstructing Seridoense identity. In this work, Sertão and Seridó designate symbolic territories densely populated by a selective memory. Seridoense identity is understood as a discursive and relational construction (Hall, 2006), configured as a narrative identity (Ricoeur, 2014) forged within the tension between lived experience and literary tradition. Consequently, this study discusses how Gomes’s (2005) prose and Alves’s (1983) poetry evidence, construct, and problematize regional memory and identity. To that end, the thesis mobilizes, in an unprecedented way for this corpus, the theoretical framework of cultural memory of Jan Assmann (1995, 2008, 2011, 2016) and Aleida Assmann (2006, 2011), articulated with the formulations of Erll, Gymnich and Nünning (2003) and Erll and Nünning (2008) about literature as an active and privileged medium in the formation, circulation and transformation of memory. This combination is essential to demonstrate how literary practice acts in the exteriorization of narrative identity on the cultural plane. This framework is complemented by studies on memory, history and narrative (Bergson, 1999; Ricoeur, 1994, 2007, 2014; Le Goff, 2003; Nora, 1993; Halbwachs, 2013) and by the socio-historical contextualization of the Sertão of the Seridó region (Cascudo, 1956, 1984, 2012; Cirne, 2013; Faria, 1965; Faria, 1980; Faria, 2004; Medeiros, 1980; Medeiros Filho, 1983; Macêdo, 2012, 2015; Diniz, 2008; Araújo, 2006; Morais, 2020). The methodology combines literary analysis, guided by Antonio Candido’s (2009a, 2009b, 2011a, 2011b) dialectical perspective, with cultural studies, establishing a qualitative and interdisciplinary approach. The results reveal that the works operate as expressive mnemonic supports. Symbolic elements, such as cattle ranching, the drought, the patriarchy and the big house (casa-grande), are employed in distinct ways by the authors to mediate different temporalities and worldviews. If the prose of Gomes (2005) elaborates a more sedimented and mythical memory, focused on existential drama and the decay of social structures, the poetry of Alves (1983) captures the urgency of communicative memory, giving voice to the collective and traumatic experience of the drought with a bias of denunciation. It is concluded that the literature of both surpasses the mere documentary record of the past, acting as mnemonic agency in which the seridoense identity is permanently renegotiated. This approach redefines belonging as an act of language and memory, grounding a necessary critical re-evaluation of the legacy of these writers.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1675070 - JOSE LUIZ FERREIRA
Interno - 1299003 - DERIVALDO DOS SANTOS
Externo ao Programa - 1046384 - JOATAN DAVID FERREIRA DE MEDEIROS - UFRNExterna ao Programa - 1169325 - VALDENIDES CABRAL DE ARAÚJO DIAS - UFRNExterno à Instituição - EIDSON MIGUEL DA SILVA MARCOS - SEEC
Externa à Instituição - MAYARA COSTA PINHEIRO - IFRN