BITING OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW: GERMAN-BRAZILIAN CULTURAL CANNIBALISM

Abstract

Cultural cannibalism is an aesthetic practice and an analytical tool that can be used to look closely at (trans)cultural encounters that happen in the arts. From its modernist roots, the term inherited a bold spirit, a playful self-assertion in the face of the other, a refusal to submit to the “good taste” of the metropole. This dissertation situates cultural cannibalism within the field of cultural and transnational studies and in conversation with other concepts, such as Fernando Ortiz’s transculturation, the melting-pot metaphor (both in the US and in Germany), the European Willkommenskultur, and the now popular cultural appropriation. Through concrete examples – such as the literary encounter between the German ethnographer Theodor Koch-Grünberg and the Brazilian modernist Mário de Andrade, and the (trans)cultural performances by the Swiss theater director Milo Rau – I show how cultural cannibalism is a long-needed analytical lens in the field, as it not only brings the playfulness and power inversion characteristic of its roots, but it also evokes a special affect, an irreverence and aggressivity that are not present in other concepts, as well as the idea of “punching-up,” of recognizing the agency and intentionality of the less powerful culture in a (trans)cultural interaction.