1. Carnival: The Ephemerality of Laughter and Forgetting
1.1. Carnival is a time when rich and poor interact with each other. Time to forget about the social norms.
1.2. Carnival is both conservative and liberatory
1.3. Carnival is not the" truth". Everyday life of people in the Favelas is the truth.
2. Describes Felicidade Eterna. The favela where Gloria and her family live. Which in English means "Eternal Bliss". However, sounds far from it.
3. INTRODUCTION
3.1. Theme 1:
3.1.1. Power Relations and how they are experienced by the poor
3.1.1.1. The poor are forced to express their resistance behind the backs of power
3.1.1.2. Because of their laughter out of place the poor are made to seem like an "alien within" by the more powerful classes
3.1.1.3. Primarily relates her encounters with the people who live in favelas.
3.2. Theme 2:
3.2.1. Humor
3.2.1.1. Functions as a weapon of the weak
3.2.1.2. Both conservative and liberatory
3.2.1.3. allows for individuals to talk about matters that are naturalized, unquestioned, or silenced.
3.2.1.4. Black humor a discourse created by the poor and used against the wealthier class.
4. Chapter One:
4.1. May 1995. Goldstein returns to Brazil. Finds her friend Soneca at the bar. Greets her with news that Zeca died. Goldstein is shocked and sadden however Gloria laughs "teasingly".
4.2. First Arrival
4.2.1. Golstein Arrived at the end of 1990. For her dissertation research.
4.2.2. She was stunned by the poverty and distinct division of social classes in Rio.
4.2.3. Rio the city of contrasts.
4.3. Scholar in Training
4.3.1. Wanted to study poor women because the middle and upper class colleagues did not understand the lives of the poor.
4.3.2. In 1990, went to do research on the former capital and slave trading center: Salvador, Bahia.
4.3.2.1. Arrived at a time where AIDS awareness was an big issue in Brazil
4.3.2.1.1. Changed the focus of her research to the effects of AIDS epidemic of low income women.
4.4. Habits of class and domination
4.4.1. Use laughter to oppose Brazilian ideologies.
4.4.2. "Taste" of humor underlines the real issue at the core of everything "Power".
4.5. Return to Laughter
4.5.1. Soneca gives a perfect example of power struggle when she tells Goldstein that when she questioned about her brothers health all the doctors said was"who is the doctor here you or me?