PORTUGUESE 077 - Laughter and Disaster | Romance Languages & Literatures

Semester: Spring

Year offered: 2026

This course engages the twin lenses of the comic and the disastrous as modes of studying Portuguese and Brazilian cultures. We will consider how reactions to disastrous events and how creating comic scenarios in written texts and performance are especially significant in understanding cultural trends, historical moments, individual and collective identities, and the limits and freedoms of transgression. We will regularly pay close attention to language, vocabulary, wordplay, malediction, irony, and exaggeration.

Instructor

Josiah Blackmore

jblackmore@fas.harvard.edu

Nancy Clark Smith Professor of the Language and Literature of Portugal

Portuguese Section Leader

Portuguese Undergraduate Advisor

Academic Degrees: B.A., M.A., Ohio State Univ., Ph.D., Harvard Univ. ITT International Fellow (Univ. de Lisboa) Research Interests: Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese Literature and Culture; Camões; the Maritime Humanities; Lusophone Imperial/Colonial...