Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: GILBERTO CRUZ VIEIRA JUNIOR

TUPINIPUNK: FROM GENRE TO CONCEPT.

Tupinipunk; Brazil;  Tupiniquim; Cyberpunk.

This thesis presents a way of reading Tupinipunk that is not exclusively that of a
literary subgenre of Brazilian Science Fiction (CF). I problematize enunciations
of the type Tupinipunk: Brazilian Cyperpunk, or other pronouncements similar to
this one, such as Tupinipunk: Cyberpunk Tupiniquim, as one of the ways to
question the pedestals erected by the hierarchies imposed by cultural
discourses, taking as the axis of the debate the positions occupied by
Tupinipunk itself and North American Cyberpunk. In this vein, I encourage a
dialog with Brazilian literary critics who question these hierarchies, often nestled
in the cultural sphere: Silviano Santiago, Antônio Cândido, Roberto Schwarz
and Ivete Lara Camargos Walty. Still in the arenas erected by these discursive
octagons, I illuminate some points from the field of Comparative Literature as
one of the tributaries of the debate, bearing in mind that Roberto de Sousa
Causo himself, coiner of the term Tupinipunk, exhaustively exercises some of
the strategies of this field to present the neologism. In addition, I develop a
movement against the backdrop of a notorious tendency shown by critics of
Brazilian fiction, which would be to reinforce or even praise cyberpunk as a
literary expression of foreign fiction that is truly privileged and tends to serve as
a model and comparative ballast for the other literary manifestations of the
genre that orbit around it, Tupinipunk being one of them. Repositioning
Tupinipunk from its current position as a subgenre of Brazilian fiction to a
promising conceptual stature requires revisiting its theoretical and critical
trajectory, whose positions I question based on scenes and images that don't
necessarily revolve around this literary genre, which until then had been seen
as a beacon of enunciation. In this way, I am returning the call of the Brazilian
literary critic Fausto Cunha who, back in 1973, expressed the importance of
raising Brazil as the central theme of fictional literary genres - whether derived
from CF or not - as well as presenting scenes other than those graced by the
literary narratives provided by this genre, but which orbit around the same
theme.