Transatlantic crossing in the 1920s and 30s – the trajectories of the European poetic and scientific avant-garde in Brazil

This article focuses on four paradigmatic cases of travelers. The central part concerns Dina Levi-Strauss who gave the first course on modern ethnography in Brazil. She transfered the very latest: her projects include the founding of an ethnographic museum modeled on the “Musee de l`Homme”. Claude Levi-Strauss and Fernand Braudel traveled to Sao Paulo as members of the French mission, which played an important role in the founding of the University of Sao Paulo. For political reasons Claude Levi-Strauss’ contract at the University was not renewed in 1937. Blaise Cendrars was already a famous poet when he crossed the Atlantic in 1924. Fascism in Europe and World War II interrupted the careers of these four travelers as well as their interchanges with Brazil and their Brazilian friendships. But Brazilian experiences of Claude Levi-Strauss and Braudel are crucial for their successful careers, after 1945. --- Original in English.