Vanessa Ferreira Vieira

Vanessa Ferreira Vieira is a doctoral student in Foreign Languages and Translation (PPG-LETRA) at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her thesis focuses on the autobiographical works of Rwandan writer Scholastique Mukasonga. She holds a master's degree in Literature Studies, and in 2020 defended her dissertation entitled Autobiografia de meu pai: La place, by Annie Ernaux, at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, in the state of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). French-language literature is one area of her research, focusing on writings of the self in relation to social and historical issues.

The project

This research project aims to study the francophone literary universe of Rwandan writer Scholastique Mukasonga, whose narratives revolve around the theme of genocide in her country in the 1990s.  Based on this plan, I intend to broaden the theoretical and methodological references of the research, weaving dialogues through a bibliographical and documentary study of the history and geopolitics of Rwanda, the history of francophone literatures, and the ideas of Martinique essayist Edouard Glissant on literature and its relationship to the world. This study will be highly relevant to the advancement of my doctoral project, the main aim of which is to identify the intersections of Mukasonga's autobiographical works, notably Inyenzi ou les Cafards (2006). La femme aux pieds nus (2008) and Un si beau diplôme (2018), with the philosophy of Relation proposed by Glissant. I start from the premise that literary writing can contribute to decolonizing imaginations about traditional history, by presenting a poetic look at spaces and communities affected by tragedy. France has a particular link with the history of Rwanda, including the sharing of the French language, while at the same time hosting survivors of the genocide since 1994, which makes it a country rich in documentary resources on the subject, allowing me further research in this field.

Title: The poetics of space in the works of Scholastique Mukasonga

Hosting institution: Université Sorbonne Paris Nord

Selective Bibliography

• Golda, Paweł; Żywicka, Natalia; Vieira, Vanessa Ferreira. S’attaquer à la suprématie du masculin sur le féminin : le français inclusif dans les publications des universités françaises dans les réseaux sociaux. Neophilologica 2019, v. 33, p. 1-24, 2021.
• Vieira, Vanessa Ferreira. Casais felizes e relações duradouras: a representação da existência lésbica na obra 'Amora', de Natalia Polesso. Anuário de Literatura (UFSC), v. 25, p. 67-76, 2020.
• Vieira, Vanessa Ferreira. A linguagem entre dois mundos na obra ‘O lugar’, de Annie Ernaux. Non Plus - USP, v. 7, p. 156-168, 2018.