The program

Welcome to the website of the Graduate Program in Literary Studies of Universidade Federal Fluminense (Fluminense Federal University).


Year started: 2010
CAPES evaluation grade: 7
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Silvio Renato Jorge
Deputy Coordinator: Prof. Dr. André Dias
The Graduate Program in Literary Studies of UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense – Fluminense Federal University) was approved by CAPES (Agency for the Further Education of Higher Education Personnel) in 2009 and became operational in 2010. It originated from the former Graduate Language and Literature Program, created in 1970. That split also created The Graduate Programs in Language Studies.

After having existed for about 40 years, awarding masters and doctoral degrees in its respective major areas, the Administrative Board of UFF’s Graduate Language and Literature Program, in its last annual meeting in 2006, announced its need to subdivide in order to create two different graduate programs, namely, Language Studies and Literary Studies, considering that both areas were well developed within the parent program and were well consolidated, with a scientific production level compatible with the requirements to establish a new program. In addition, both areas were balanced and fairly homogeneous, with similar numbers regarding professors (about 30), students (about 150) and an analogous volume of scientific production. Thus, the Program’s division was also planned in order to offer a better defined academic profile for the Capes evaluation, as well as better conditions for the development and expansion of both programs, as is currently the case with programs that focus on more specific lines of research; it was also considered that the programs would have greater relevance and political and academic representation both at the regional and at national and international levels. Consequently, the proposed division met academic and administrative requirements, which allowed the two new programs to organize themselves in a more organic, specific and consistent manner. Over the three following years, the new Programs’ Administrative Boards worked on revising their curricula, lines of research and courses in order to adjust their academic profile to the expertise of their faculty and experience, and to cater for the research and training demands of our country’s tertiary education system.

In 2007, the proposed division was approved by the Administrative Boards of the three centers where UFF’s Graduate Language and Literature Program was active: the Centre for General Studies, the Institute of Letters and the Program itself. Based on their favorable decisions, the internal committees responsible for the two new programs drafted their Bylaws, the Proposal to be submitted for approval, and the Curricula for the Language Studies and Literary Studies Programs. In 2008, the proposal was approved by UFF’s two highest levels of authority — the Board of Education and Research and the University Council. Early in 2009, the formal Proposal for the approval of the new Programs was submitted to CAPES. The new Programs, both with a CAPES evaluation grade of 5, were approved late in October 2009, and began operating fully in 2010. This epitomizes the consolidation of two major areas — Language and Literature, in terms of its faculty members and students, lines of research and research projects, academic and technical production, in sum, the growth and maturity of a Program that would have reached 40 years of existence in 2010 with nationwide recognition, and that now continues divided into two new programs.

UFF’s Graduate Program in Literature Studies has as its main objectives to train highly qualified professionals for the activities of research and/or teaching at college level in the area of Language and Literary Studies, and to contribute to the advancement of knowledge within the scope of Literary Studies. At the level of its Masters Degree, it aims at training individuals to do research and to teach in the area of Literary Studies, and who are able to perform competently primarily in the Southeast Region of Brazil and to serve other regions of the nation as well as to continue their academic education at graduate level. At the doctoral degree level, the Graduate Program in Literary Studies aims at training individuals who can become autonomous, outstanding scientific researchers who can excel in higher education teaching, who are committed to fostering the ability to seek different sources of information and reflection and to promoting intellectual productivity beyond the classroom boundaries and beyond the core courses in the Curriculum, in a constant expansion of scientific knowledge in the field of Literary Studies.