O Projeto Literatura de Cordel: o Centro de Referência Cultural do Ceará (1975-1990) entre o folclore e a cultura popular

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze how cordel literature was appropriated by the State of Ceará as a cultural symbol and how it founded the idealization of a state culture by the Ceará Cultural Reference Center (CERES). CERES was an agency linked to the Secretary of Culture of the State of Ceará (SECULT) known for the promotion of records and studies on the artistic manifestations of the so-called Ceará popular culture between 1975 – 1990. CERES was comprised of a group of intellectuals with very diferent backgrounds, among which we highlight Oswald Barroso, Rosemberg Cariry, Roberto Aurélio Lustosa, Edvar Costa, Otávio Menezes and Sylvia Porto Alegre, whose work was developed from two main projects: the Project Artesanato (handcrafts) and the Cordel Literature Project. Through publications launched by the latter, such as Antologia da Literatura de Cordel (1978; 1980), Caderno de Cultura (1979) and Literatura Popular em Questão (1982), we specifically analyzed CERES’s conceptions on the basis of the popular culture in trajectory of the field of folk studies in Ceará. The findings showed that the state agency gradually incorporated the new cultural conceptions of Anthropology, which modified, in a broader way, the theoretical-methodological perspectives of the human and social sciences during the 1970s and 1980s.