Event Archive 2015

Homenagem: Remembering the Life and Work of Abdias Nascimento

Political thinker, activist, educator, painter, playwright, human rights advocate, untiring warrior in the fight to end racial exclusion in Brazil and elsewhere, Abdias Nascimento (1914-2011) is a towering figure in the Africana world. Join us for a one-day event in which an international group of scholars/observers share their insights into his life, thought, and indelible contributions.

9a.m. – 5p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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John T. Karam - Manifold Destiny: Arabs at a South American Border Remaking the Hemisphere

How are Arabs at the tríplice fronteira (tri-border) between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina compromising and constitutive of these Americas? Their more than half-century-long presence at this border heralds a multipolar turn in the hemisphere. Settling on the Brazilian and Paraguayan sides of the tri-border since the 1950s, mostly Lebanese and Palestinians consolidated Brazil’s influence over Argentine-dominated Paraguay since the 1970s, bore security measures demanded by Argentina and the Mercosul trade bloc through the 1990s, and became a fulcrum in the U.S. war on terror during the 2000s. In signaling the twilight of “manifest destiny,” the doctrine that typified century-long U.S. impositions over Latin America, Arab traders and activists at the tri-border both animated and endured the increasingly myriad relations among Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and the U.S.. Their economic and political histories augur a new, manifold destiny for the hemisphere whereby no single power rules.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Oswaldo Truzzi - Lebanese and Syrian Immigration to São Paulo from 1880 to 1950

The saga of thousands of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants who moved to Brazil from the last two decades of the 19th century until the 1930s constitutes a great chapter in the immigration history of Brazil, and especially of São Paulo. This paper focuses on the main features of this pioneering saga, by exploring the characteristics of the flow, the socio-economic insertion, identity patterns, processes of differentiation of the group, as well as the massive entry of the first generation born in Brazil in the professions and in local politics. Finally, a comparative approach highlights the similarities and differences in the trajectories of Lebanese and Syrians in Brazil and the United States.

2p.m. – 3:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Insitute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Rahul Sirohi - Alternate Paths to Economic Development: Brazil and India

This paper compares and contrasts Brazilian and Indian strategies of development during the era of neo-liberalism. At the surface there are striking similarities between the development strategies of the two regions. Both economies have integrated themselves deeply into the world economy and they have emerged as major exporters of sophisticated goods and services. Both have embraced markets but far from limiting their government much of their economic success is attributable to active state intervention. But underlying all these similarities there are far reaching differences. In the case of Brazil, radical labour market interventions and welfare schemes have created an inclusive process of growth. On the other hand, in India the developmental approach has promoted an exclusionary form of growth where the very process of growth has become contingent on wage declines and low employment growth. My analysis seeks to understand the dynamics of economic change in the two economies and attempts to draw out the institutional and political factors that have influenced these approaches.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Paul Amar and Paulo Pinto -Value of Transregional/Transnational Comparative Scholarship

Paul Amar, Associate Professor, Global & International Studies Program, University of California, SantaBarbara, and Paulo Pinto, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Fluminense Federal University, Niteroi, Brazil, will be speaking on the “Value of Transregional / Transnational Comparative Scholarship.”  Why does work that crosses between the Middle East and Latin America (specifically Brazil)  raise questions and develop methods that are uniquely productive and illuminating? Amar and Pinto will focus on how they began to develop this network in Rio in 2003 and how it has developed, as well as speaking to their specific fields of anthropology, political science and global studies.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Political and Social Unrest: A Roundtable on the Current Brazilian Crisis

A roundtable of four–graduate students Moises Costa and Silvia Cabral Teresa, faculty member Roquinaldo Ferreira, and journalist Mila Burns-- will analyze the current political, economic and social crisis in Brazil. Will President Dilma Rousseff be impeached? Can Brazil return to high rates of growth? Is Brazilian democracy imperiled? This open forum will explore these and other pressing issues that are being hotly debated in Brazil in the media, in Congress, on social networks, and in daily life.

6p.m. – 8p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Lazaro Cunha - Oguntec: The Inclusion of Black Youth in Science and Technology in Bahia

This talk will analyze the trajectory of the Steve Biko Cultural Institute, an educational organization of the Brazilian black movement that since 1992 has given a new tone to Brazilian higher education.  Cunha will reflect on the context that encouraged the Institute’s emergence in Salvador da Bahia, and in doing so, describe the profile of its activist-founders and the youth who participate in and co-produce it. Biko Institute’s educational projects will be outlined, particularly its initiatives to open up study and research in science and technology to the Afro-descendant majority, think through more inclusive engineering and innovation, and promote human rights and anti-racism in Brazil. Finally, the talk will reflect on the impact of these actions on Biko Institute’s constituencies, and on the public policies of the Brazilian state, particularly in the current conjuncture.

4p.m. – 5:30p.m.   George Houston Bass Performing Arts Space, Churchill House, 155 Angell Street.

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Vitor Izecksohn -War and Slavery in the Rio de La Plata Basin

My presentation will examine the emancipation of slaves to fight as soldiers in the Brazilian army in the Triple Alliance War (1864-1870). Since the beginning of the conflict, slaves were enrolled individually in the army. But after 1866, the war´s second year, Imperial officers tried to start a more aggressive policy of enrollment with indemnification. My lecture will explore three questions central to this process. How did the recruitment of the Brazilian slaves and their transformation into “free-soldiers” become a question of state? What was the response among the supporters of the monarchy, the planters? How did participation in the war affect the lives of those freed for service in the post-war years?

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Patrick Heller - Brazilian Cities in Comparative Perspective

Despite similar legacies of exclusion and shared pressures of marketization, the modal mega city in India, South Africa and Brazil has taken a distinct form. The Indian city is a characterized as a growth cabal, in which economic and political elites have exploited institutional failures to extract enormous rents from the city.  The South African city has become a classic growth machine, supported and sustained by a stable political coalition and relatively effective forms of governance.  But in the absence of links to civil society, efforts to promote inclusion have failed and the state now faces a crisis of legitimacy. The Brazilian city has developed new capacities to promote inclusion, earning it the label of the social city. Central-local state relations have been critical in determining the capacity and substance of urban transformation. The relationship between the local state and civil society (shaped in no small part by extra-local institutional arrangements), largely explains the extent to which the local state can effectively reverse the dynamics of urban exclusion.

1:30p.m. – 3p.m.   McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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CineBrasil 2015

CineBrasil is an annual film festival showcasing the best in recent Brazilian cinema. CineBrasil this year will include documentaries, shorts and feature length films of great artistic quality that are virtually unknown outside of Brazil. Films will touch on mundane social reality, race relations, LGBT life, adolescent perspectives on the world and loneliness and anonymity. See full schedule below. Admittance for the festival is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please arrive on time, even a bit early to secure seating. Note that though many trailers do not have English subtitles, all of the films will be subtitled. 

Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, 154 Angell Street.

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Marina Silva -Opportunities and Challenges For Sustainable Development in Brazil

5p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Seth Garfield -“A Third-Rate Musical Comedy, Except in the Deadly Seriousness of its Implications”: Brazil, the United States and the Amazon Rubber Campaign of World War II

Faced with the devastating loss of over ninety percent of its rubber supply in 1942, the United States invested millions of dollars to boost wild rubber production in the Amazon. A host of social actors, however, armed with competing visions of the Amazon’s future, would reshape public policies for regional development. This lecture explores the wartime history of the Amazon as a window onto the nature of a region, and the origins of contemporary environmental debates.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Watch webcast of "Brazil's Model of Low Carbon Sustainable Development" conference

We are proud to announce that the conference "Brazil's Model of Low Carbon Sustainable Development," held on April 17 and 18 was a success! At 900 views, the conference was the most viewed event of the semester at Watson Institute and was one of the top topics trending on Twitter in Providence this past week. We urge you to continue to learn more about Brazil through amazing events like these here at the Brazil Initiative. 

Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Spring 2015 Film Series -Lixo Extraordinário (Waste Land)

A 2010 documentary by Vik Muniz about the power of art, "Lixo Extraordinário" (Waste Land) explores the lives of garbage pickers in Jardim Gramacho, an enormous landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

4p.m. – 6p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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"Brazilian Environment(s)": Graduate Student Symposium

In this one-day student symposium, Brown graduate students and some advanced undergraduates will present work on Brazil and the environment. The schedule is included on the web page listing.

9a.m. – 3p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Severino Albuquerque- Cruising the Ruins: Sex, Performance, Displacement, and Race in Tulio Carella's Recife Diaries

This presentation focuses on the sexually explicit diary Argentine playwright and theater professor Tulio Carella (TC) (1912-1979) wrote during an 18-month stay in Recife, Brazil, in the chaotic period leading up to the 1964 military coup. The apprehension of the manuscript (published a few years later as Orgia) by the military at a time of intense repression in South America deployed additional fissures to Carella's writing of exclusion and pain.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Ines Dourado -Late Presentation to HIV/AIDS Services in Brazil

3p.m. – 4p.m.   Hurvitz 1 Conference Room, The Miriam Hospital, 164 Summit Avenue.

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Spring 2015 Film Series -Doméstica (Housemaids)

The footage for the 2012 film "Doméstica" comes from seven teenagers who filmed the housemaids who work for them for a week.

7p.m. – 9p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Geri Augusto -“Contra o Apartheid lá na África do Sul…e lá vou eu”: Critical Oral Histories of Protest, Anti-racism and Black Transnationalism in Brazil

Commissioned by the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET) to write the Brazilian chapter for a forthcoming volume in its ongoing oral history-based series on the global anti-apartheid and African liberation support movements, Prof. Geri Augusto will reflect on the interviews she is doing in Brazil this year, the problems inherent in writing truly global histories of radical transnationalism—including the dilemmas of language and translation writ large, and why studying Africa and Latin America together may continue  to yield new insights.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Marlon Weichert and Professor James Green -Paths Forward in Brazil

Brazilian Prosecutor Marlon Weichert and Brazil Initiative Director James Green will discuss future pathways for Brazil given recent protests and political tensions. 

12p.m. – 1p.m.   Kim Koo Library, 3rd floor Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

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Marlon Weichert -The National Truth Commission Report: What Are the Next Steps for Human Rights Activists?

The Brazilian National Truth Commission launched a very impressive report on December 10, 2014. Considering its unique characteristics, due to its broad mandate, and the fact that it was created almost 30 years after the end of the dictatorship, the Brazilian NTC shed light on subjects not usually examined by similar entities. Marlon A Weichert, a Brazilian federal prosecutor who has been working with the legacy of the dictatorship for the last 14 years, will share at the Watson Institute his impressions and thoughts about this report and its impact for those working on human rights activism.

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Jose Antonio Cheibub -Order in Chaos: Intra-party Coordination in Systems of Open-List-Proportional-Representation

Professor Cheibub's paper studies the role of political parties in composing candidate lists in a permissive electoral system. It argues that political parties play a central role in preventing the eruption of all-out competition among co-partisans, and provides evidence supporting the view that parties strategically limit the number of viable candidates competing under their label. Data is used from contemporary Brazil, which is, arguably, the worst case for finding evidence of intra-party coordination.

6p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Cheol-Sung Lee -Embeddedness and Welfare States: A Network Approach to Social Policy Expansion and Retrenchment in Developing Countries

Professor Lee explores how leaders of labor and civic organizations in Brazil and elsewhere mobilize and institutionalize divergent repertoires of social solidarity regarding social policy agendas, and how they channel those policy agendas into state institutions through the politics of threat and persuasion. He develops a society-based explanatory model of the welfare state, in which labor-civic solidarity and union-party alliance jointly account for outcomes of welfare state retrenchment as well as welfare state expansion.

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Spring 2015 Film Series -Eduardo Escorel Documentaries

Filmmaker extraordinaire Eduardo Escorel will screen two documentaries, O tempo e o lugar about militant politics in the Northeast and A vocação do poder about electoral politics in Rio de Janeiro in following our 2014-2015 theme of politics and policy in Brazil. A screening will take place after a lecture at 8pm in Joukowsky on Wednesday, March 11 and at 7pm on Thursday, March 12.

Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Eduardo Escorel -Martyrs, Heroes and Ordinary Men

Director Eduardo Escorel will show excerpts from six documentaries made in the early 1960’s to provide a context for his film "O tempo e o lugar" (released in 2008) in the history of Brazilian cinema on the Northeast region. He will then provide commentary and have a question and answer session surrounding their narrative form.

6:30p.m. – 7:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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