Transatlantic crossing in the 1920s and 30s – the trajectories of the European poetic and scientific avant-garde in Brazil

• Main Author: Ellen Spielmann
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal Fluminense 2016-12-01
• Series: Gragoatá
• Subjects: Cruzamentos transatlânticos século XX; história da ciência; vanguarda poética e científica; Universidade de São Paulo; Dina e Claude Lévi-Strauss; Fernand Braudel; Blaise Cendrars; Paulo Prado; Musée de l`Homme.
• Online Access: http://www.gragoata.uff.br/index.php/gragoata/article/view/801

This article focuses on four paradigmatic cases of travelers. The central part concerns Dina Lévi-Strauss who gave the first course on modern ethnography in Brazil. She transfered the very latest: her projects include the founding of an ethnographic museum modeled on the “Musée de l`Homme”. Claude Lévi-Strauss and Fernand Braudel traveled to São Paulo as members of the French mission, which played an important role in the founding of the University of São Paulo. For political reasons Claude Lévi-Strauss’ contract at the University was not renewed in 1937. Blaise Cendrars was already a famous poet when he crossed the Atlantic in 1924. Fascism in Europe and World War II interrupted the careers of these four travelers as well as their interchanges with Brazil and their Brazilian friendships. But Brazilian experiences of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Braudel are crucial for their successful careers, after 1945. --- Original in English.