Cultural Policy and Cultural Transfer of Brazil

Cultural Policy and Culture Transfer of Brazil (and Argentina) from 1930 to the Fifties with particular Reference to the North American and European Influences Political and economic interests are often, and have often been, linked to politico-cultural strategies that aim to increase their efficiency. The significance of cultural policy for Brazil has been particularly clear from the thirties on, for it served modernization, the building of the nation and the consolidation of power both within the country and outside of it. The aim of the project is first to discuss the development of the cultural, education and science policy of the populist regime and ist representative classes against the political, economic and social background of the thirties and forties. The political productions, i.e. the rites, symbols and myths that accompanied the nation-building process, and which sought to avoid conflict and to harmonize society, will then be analyzed. As Brazil clearly followed non-Brazilian models here (first of all European - especially fascist - models, and then much more clearly North American models from the late 1930`s), their influence will be considered with the method of cultural transfer over a longer period of time - up to the fifties. The change in the political concepts of the enemy that played a role (from the antifascist to the anticommunist war of the United States) will be taken into account. From the late thirties the USA, with a view to its economic and political interests, placed great importance on the extension of its field of influence in Latin America. Brazil will serve to exemplify politico-cultural strategies, whereby comparisons with Argentina will be made when relevant. Concrete examples such as the setting up of cultural institutions, the discourse between artists and scientists, radio and film (using the examples of Orson Welles and Candido Portinari) will be given. An extensive amount of previously unknown material from Brazilian and North American archives has been drawn upon during this project. This research project aims to show the reception and assimilation of politico-cultural elements from outside (institutional and symbolic structures) in the nation-building process in the fields of science and culture with the method of intercultural transfer. A second central question here is the extent of the influence of the USA on the politico-cultural level up to the fifties, and the acquisition of cultural patterns in Brazil itself. Klaus ZEYRINGER U.C.O - I.P.L.V.