Professor of Architecture Fernando Lara reflects on his forthcoming book, Onze Preposições (Eleven Prepositions), to be published in Brazil this fall. Drawing on his own experience as a scholar working across languages, countries, and intellectual traditions, Lara reflects on the process of bringing the book to a Portuguese-speaking audience, bringing semantics, colonial history, and architecture into conversation.
Lara introduces the book in his own words:
Like so many of our international PhD students today, I thought I was at the top of my game when I started my doctoral studies in the USA, only to be forced to learn everything again in order to succeed in the academia of another country. I like to think that being trained to produce rigorous scholarship in a different place, using a different and often new language, makes us all better researchers. This is one reason PhD programs still require proficiency in multiple languages in times of good and easy online translations. It is not only about language skills but about mastering a different literature tradition. Different audiences require different conceptual framing, different references, different ways of organizing your thoughts. I learned that 30 years ago when I first left Brazil and I am still learning because both my work and the literature overall keep changing.
This forthcoming book called Onze Preposições (Eleven Prepositions) will be published in Brazil this Fall. My idea for the book was to engage with the Portuguese-speaking audiences regarding the colonial aspects of architectural theory and history that have guided my work in the last decade. Drawing on the conceptual framework of PRe/oPOSITIONS - the lab that I lead at University of Pennsylvania - I weave together various relationships between architecture, space, and society. Each preposition introduces a specific type of relationship and frames an article that was previously published in English: *A* discusses the geopolitics of knowledge and Eurocentrism in architectural history; *ANTE* examines the link between the colonization of the Americas and the formation of the architectural discipline; *COM* addresses the connection between spatial abstraction and privilege; *CONTRA* offers a critique of the historiography of Brazilian modern architecture; *DESDE* uses the “cobogó” as a starting point to discuss modernity and coloniality; *PARA* presents a pedagogical proposal for architectural education; *PERANTE* draws upon the work of Paulo Freire; *POR* discusses the construction of spatial concepts from the perspective of the Americas; *SEM* analyzes the racist roots of the canon; *SOBRE* deals with the concept of sovereignty; and *TRÁS* addresses the marginalization - or rendering invisible - of the Americas within the canonical narrative of architecture.
The strategy of using the prepositions to organize the book serves two purposes: it helps me problematize my own positionality and it allows me to go beyond translation and set up a system to engage another audience, with another set of references and valuations. In the end, re-writing for a different public is one very efficient way to reflect on your own thoughts.
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