Victoria Langland Speaking of Flowers | sku-21942060

Speaking of Flowers by Victoria Langland (sku-21942060) is a hardcover listed in Latin American History Books. It examines student activism during Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-85) and how the protests of 1968 changed the meaning of student activism. Langland asks why students entered national politics as students.

She traces an uneven shift from claims rooted in class, race and gender privilege toward institutional and symbolic claims to political authority. As students began to see themselves as representatives of a demobilized civil society, the increasingly violent government challenged their right to take part in politics amid Cold War political and gendered tensions.

Langland argues that this challenge helped ignite the 1968 protests. She also examines how later generations of Brazilian students used memories of those demonstrations in their political struggles.