Jocelito Zalla

I am a professor in the Department of Humanities at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Brazil), where I focus on teaching and research in History at various educational levels. This includes Basic Education (at the Colégio de Aplicação, the university’s school), undergraduate supervision in the Bachelor’s and Licentiate programs in History, and advanced studies in the Master’s and PhD programs in History and History Teaching.

My primary research interests lie in 20th-century Brazilian history, Cultural History, Intellectual History, and History Teaching. I particularly analyze the social history of cultural goods, including literature, folklore, historiography, and school history books.

Currently, my research project explores the role of modernist intellectuals in shaping the Brazilian literary canon and their involvement in the political sphere. I have also examined their self-legitimation discourses, such as the "myth of modernist democracy in Brazil", which raises questions about the democratization of literary production in the country after the 1920s. This includes the integration of Afro-Amerindian cultural expressions into the works of authors traditionally dominant in terms of class, race, and gender within the Brazilian literary field between the 1920s and 1960s.