Nancy M. Farriss Graduate Student Paper Award 2020

 Nancy M. Farriss Graduate Student Paper Award

Congratulations to Maria Pape,  her paper  “A Form for the Masses! The Brazilian Process of Politicization in Patrícia Galvão’s Parque Industrial,” has been awarded the 2020 Nancy M. Farriss Graduate Student Paper Award from the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Abstract* Patrícia Galvão’s Parque Industrial. Romance Proletário (1933) is a study of the politicization of the masses at the very beginning of Getúlio Vargas’s populism. In this piece, I analyze the ways in which the novel intervenes in the incipient getulismo, destabilizing its political logic by negating two of its key elements––nationalism and strong personal leadership. Then, I parse the novel’s political counterproposal by examining how it aesthetically works through the ambiguous relationship between the proletariat and the masses. In doing so, I propose that the novel presents us with an aesthetic of the masses. Finally, I argue that Parque Industrial’s politic-aesthetical project exposes an essential problem that both the Left and Vargas were facing: how to give political form to the masses.

LALS would also like to congratulate Yasmin Mertehikian on receiving the Nancy Farriss Award honorable mention.