Queering and Querying the Paradise of Paradox: LGBT Language, New Media, and Visual Cultures in Modern-Day Brazil

This book provides readers with a study of the characteristics that make life unique for sexual minorities in Brazil while also viewing Brazil in relation to global LGBT sociopolitical movements. It critically assesses the complex relationship(s) between the visual arts and political activism, carefully analyzing artistic, cinematic, and photographic representations of LGBTQ identities. Brazil provides a useful case to example, with the cultivation of ambiguity in contemporary (re)constructions of queer life. In this book, the author conducts the first comprehensive discourse analysis of the dynamics and features of the largest LGBT Pride Parade in the world. This problematizes and analyzes the relationship between burgeoning critical socio-political movements and institutions and the language and new media discourses used to configure and conceptualize them.

The aim of this project is to create a theoretical scholarly framework promoting linkages between political activism and academic scholarship and by using discourse analysis, the intricacies of terminology Brazilian sexual minorities adopt and adapt, illustrating the development of LGBTQ identities through performative language use.

Steven F. Butterman is Associate Professor of Portuguese and Director of the Portuguese Language Program at the University of Miami, where he has also directed the Women’s and Gender Studies program, served as coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Studies programs and developed the minor in LGBTQ Studies.