Event Archive 2016

Tiffany Joseph - Race, Migration, and the Transnational Racial Optic

Brazil once earned a global reputation as a racial paradise, and the United States is infamous for its overt social exclusion of nonwhites. Yet, given the growing Latino and multiracial populations in the United States, the use of quotas to address racial inequality in Brazil, and the flows of people between each country, contemporary race relations in each place are starting to resemble each other. Relying on interviews conducted with residents of Governador Valadares, Brazil's largest immigrant-sending city to the U.S., this talk examines how Brazil-U.S. migration is changing Brazilians' understanding of race relations in each place. I identify and examine a phenomenon—the transnational racial optic—through which migrants develop and ascribe social meaning to race in one country by incorporating conceptions of race from the other. Analyzing the bi-directional exchange of racial ideals through the experiences of migrants, I offer an innovative framework for understanding how race can be remade in immigrant-sending communities.

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

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Ana Maria Caetano Faria - Healthy Aging in Brazil: Populations, Germs and Inflammation

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   Birkelund Board Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Marc Hertzman - The Death of Zumbi: Suicide, Slavery, and History in Brazil and the Black Atlantic

At the end of the seventeenth century, Zumbi, the last leader of Palmares, Brazil’s iconic runaway slave community, died.  For centuries, his death was cast as a heroic suicide, but historical documents show that he was, in fact, killed by colonial forces, who then decapitated his corpse and posted the head in public.  This paper explores the different meanings that diverse actors have attached to Zumbi’s death and asks what each reveals about suicide, slavery, history, and race.  Why do some parties cling to the suicide legend, and why do others insist on repeatedly debunking it?  What can the struggles to define Zumbi’s death tell us about the trajectory and formation of modern Brazil and its racial mythologies?

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

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Fabio Kerche - A New Political Actor: Brazil's Prosecutor's Office and Political Crises

Brazil has been facing a profound political crisis since President Dilma Rousseff began her second term. New political actors are key in this process. One of them is the Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office. The combination of independence, discretion and tools for action which were provided by the 1988 Constitution has created a unique model in comparison, and it has allowed prosecutors to become more than a mere institution handling criminal cases. The lecture will present this institutional model.

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

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Jean Wyllys - Brazil's Political Future, What Next?

Jean Wyllys is an Afro-Brazilian, openly gay Federal Congressman from Rio de Janeiro, representing the Party of Socialism and Freedom.  Born in Alagoinhas, Bahia, and one of seven children, his mother was a washerwoman and his father was a car painter, who suffered from alcoholism.  Wyllys completed a degree in journalism at the Federal University of Bahia. He originally became famous as the first openly gay participant of the reality show Brazilian Big Brother, where he was the fifth season’s finalist. In 2010, he was elected to Congress. Wyllys was reelected in 2014 with 145,000 votes, the seventh highest result among 46 Congressional representatives elected from the State of Rio de Janeiro.

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

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Reception to Honor the Life of Thomas E. Skidmore (1932-2016)

In this reception to honor the life of Thomas E. Skidmore (1932-2016), renowned historian of Brazil, friends, family and colleagues gathered to remember one of the giants in the field of Brazilian history.

3p.m. – 5p.m.   Alumnae Hall Crystal Room.

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Edilza Sotero - Book Workshop

A workshop of postdoc Edilza Sotero's book manuscript with commentators John French and Marcia Lima. Closed and by invitation only.

12p.m. – 2p.m.   Conference Room, Churchill House, Africana Studies Department, 155 Angell Street.

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Maxine Margolis -What Does It Mean to be Brazilian?

As recent immigrants in the United States, Japan and several countries in Europe, Brazilians for the first time find themselves in situations where they are viewed as an ethnic minority. “Brazilian” becomes a marked category within the context of international migration because it raises questions of ethnic identity with which Brazilians have had little or no prior experience or consciousness. This presentation examines the contested identity of Brazilians in the U.S., the role of North American ethnic categories in this identity and Brazilians attempts to distinguish themselves from “the other”—Hispanics. It also briefly explores the identity of Brazilians in Portugal and in Japan.

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

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The Working Group on Comparative Slavery, Slaves and the Law: Comparative Questions and Approaches

The working group on comparative slavery was set up by Prof. Alejandro de la Fuente from Harvard University in 2015. It operates as an organic network of scholars committed to advancing knowledge on the comparative nature of slavery on a global level. It draws on scholars from several universities in New England, particularly those in the greater Boston area such as Harvard University, Brown University, Boston University, and MIT. The first meeting of the group took place at Harvard in October 2015 under the auspice of the Afro Latin American Research Institute, bringing together scholars from Europe, Africa, Latin America and the United States, to discuss "new trends in the historiography of the Transatlantic Slave Trade." The second meeting of the working group will happen at Brown University on October 28-29 under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ) and the Afro Latin American Research Institute from Harvard University. This meeting will center on the issue of slavery and the law, once again congregating scholars from several institutions in the United States and abroad to analyze the comparative nature of regimes of bondage in time and space. The meeting will consist of three panels, and we expect to welcome approximately twelve scholars to Brown University. We hope that the meeting will pave the way for further scholarly collaboration, production, and dissemination of knowledge on slavery. The strategic goal of the meeting is to establish the CSSJ as one of the key venues to catalyze scholarship on the global ramifications of slavery.

Petteruti Lounge, Stephen Robert Campus Center, 75 Waterman Street.

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The Early Modern Amazon: Indigenous Histories from Above and Below

When does Amazonian history begin? Certainly not with Francisco Pizarro or other European “conquistadors” that began to traverse the vast interiors of South America in the early sixteenth century. Recent research by Amazonian archaeologists has demonstrated the existence of indigenous populations in the Amazon stretching back millennia, with sophisticated urban structures and dynamic relationships with their tropical surroundings. Anthropologists have demonstrated that Amerindian communities in Amazonia have their own temporal framework for recounting historical events, as well as intricate worldviews that differ radically from Western ontological notiobs. So what contributions can early modern Amazonian history – a period roughly from 1500-1800 – make to the indigenous history of this region? A discussion with some of the world’s leading experts on Amazonian anthropology, archaeology, and history will shed light on the early modern Amazon and its indigenous histories.

4p.m. – 6:30p.m.   MacMillan Reading Room, John Carter Brown Library.

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Unearthing the South: Indigeneity, Globality, Community: A Colloquium

This colloquium considers knowledges from the vantage point of local experience and artistic practice in the American hemisphere. More than recounting how the nature/culture divide came about, speakers will consider the ways in which both nature and civilization were differently conceived. Speakers include Heather F. Roller, Colgate University; Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino, Univeristy of São Paulo; Lucia Sá, University of Manchester; Pablo F. Gómez, University of Wisconsin/Madison; Brigitte Baptiste, Instituto Humboldt/Columbia University; and Gustavo Procopio Furtado, Duke University.

9a.m. – 5p.m.   Pembroke Hall, Room 305, 172 Meeting Street.

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Tianna Paschel - The Making and Unmaking of Black Rights in Latin America

After decades of denying racism and underplaying cultural diversity, Latin American states began adopting transformative ethno-racial legislation in the late 1980s. In addition to symbolic recognition of indigenous peoples and black populations, governments in the region created a more pluralistic model of citizenship and made significant reforms in the areas of land, health, education, and development policy. Becoming Black Political Subjects explores this shift from color blindness to ethno-racial legislation in two of the most important cases in the region: Colombia and Brazil. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, Tianna Paschel shows how, over a short period, black movements and their claims went from being marginalized to become institutionalized into the law, state bureaucracies, and mainstream politics. Paschel will also examines the consequences of these reforms, including the institutionalization of certain ideas of blackness, the reconfiguration of black movement organizations, and the unmaking of black rights in the face of reactionary movements.

12p.m. – 1:30p.m.   BassPas, Churchill House, 155 Angell Street.

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Kwame Dixon - Afro-Politics and Civil Society in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil

Afro-civil society in Brazil is engaged in several important political projects: first, challenging hierarchies of political exclusion; second constructing new forms of citizenship by claiming new rights; third, testing recently enacted antidiscrimination and affirmative action measures; fourth, struggling to reclaim land rights both rural and urban; and fifth, seeking to increase political participation and representation on the local, state, and federal levels. Using Salvador as a case study, this talk spotlights and amplifies the democratic challenges and possibility of peoples of African descent in the Americas.

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

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Márcia Lima - The Challenge of Racial Inclusion in Brazil: The Case of Higher Education

How have race relations and inequalities been analyzed in the Brazilian academic debate? Has the issue of race changed over the last decades? In an attempt to answer those questions, this presentation discusses the scenario of racial inequalities in Brazil as concerns access to higher education.

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

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Brazilian Democracy and the Aftermath of Impeachment

In May 2016, the Executive Committee of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) approved a resolution considering the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff as "undemocratic." It also sent a five-member commission, headed by Harvard Professor Sidney Chalhoub and including Brown Professor Keisha-Khan Perry to Brazil in July/August to investigate the situation and prepare a report Professors Chalhoub and Perry will present their analysis of the situation in Brazil based on the Commission's findings.

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

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Brodwyn Fischer ─ The Right to the City in Theory and Practice: An Uneasy History of Brazil’s Urban Social Movements

Brodwyn Fischer's current project, Understanding Inequality in Post-Abolition Brazil, asks when—and if—social inequality came to be defined as Brazil’s central sociopolitical problem. Drastic inequalities have always defined Brazilian society, and the struggle against inequality has long shaped the political left. But in Brazil’s late nineteenth century, issues of hunger, disease, landlessness, and freedom often loomed larger for the very poor than inequality per se, and the combination of weak public institutions and private monopolization of power and resources rendered access to vertical social networks vital. In such a context, inequality was often the root cause of social misery, but access to one’s unequals was often the only way to survive it. This tension endured throughout the twentieth century, becoming a defining feature of Brazilian modernity. In tracing inequality’s confounding history, this project illuminates the sinuous logic of poor people’s political mobilization in Brazil, often revealing significant agency in actions once regarded as symptoms of false consciousness or ignorant dependence. Yet Understanding Inequality also indicates some of the paradoxical ways in which struggles for survival and social mobility have historically reinforced rather than disrupted larger inequalities.

4p.m. – 6p.m.   McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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CineBrasil 2016

CineBrasil is an annual film festival that highlights some of the best works in recent Brazilian cinema. CineBrasil this year will include documentaries and feature length films of great artistic quality, some of which are virtually unknown outside of Brazil. Films will touch on rodeo culture and gender, the use of archival footage, indigenous culture, the borderline between acting and living and family relations through soccer. 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. 

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Brazil: What's Next?

A roundtable discussion on the current political situation in Brazil with Renan Quinalha, Edilza Sotero and André Martins Bogossian.

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

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Jeff Sluyter-Beltrao - Takin' It to The Beaches: A Comparative Interpretation of Brazil's 2013 Urban Protests

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

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Pan-American Student Forum on Race

How have racialized systems in Latin America been constructed, and how does this affect lived experience? The Asian Heritage Series, the Brazil Initiative, and the Latino Heritage Series invite you to join us in the Pan-American Student Forum on Race. This event seeks to foster conversation around issues of race and ethnicity across Latin America and the Caribbean, think critically about intersectional themes across U.S. narratives, the intersectional identities within ourselves, and be a stepping stone to building a stronger community around transnational experiences.

This event is open to all who wish to listen to, learn from, explore, and/or contribute to the discussion.

6p.m. – 7p.m.   Petteruti Lounge, Stephen Robert '62 Center.

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Gregory Morton - Assets that Last: Women’s Ownership and the Timing of Bolsa Família Benefits in Rural Brazil

Over the past decade, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have become a core policy tool for addressing global poverty. None is bigger than Brazil’s giant Bolsa Família, a program that serves nearly a quarter of the nation’s population. How does this government money affect women’s ownership of assets inside the household? Or, to turn the question another way, what can Bolsa Família teach us about what it means to own? This talk is an argument for the importance of time. As it turns out, the timing of cash flows – daily, monthly, yearly, or unpredictable – has a crucial role to play in shaping the forms of ownership that result.

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

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Robert Gay - Book Discussion of “Bruno: Conversations with a Brazilian Drug Dealer"

In the 1980s a poor farmer's son from Recife, Brazil, joined the Brazilian navy and began selling cocaine. After his arrest in Rio de Janeiro he spent the next eight years in prison, where he joined the Comando Vermelho criminal faction and eventually became one of its leaders. Robert Gay tells this young man's dramatic and captivating story in Bruno. In his shockingly candid interviews with Gay, Bruno provides many insights into the criminal world in which he lived.

5p.m. – 6:30p.m.   McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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CANCELED: Luiza Bairros - From Racial Democracy to Racial Equality in Brazil

Luiza Bairros is the Former Minister of the Secretary of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality [Ministra de Estado Chefe da Secretaria de Políticas de Promoção da Igualdade Racial] in the first cabinet of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2014). Prior to this post, she served as the Secretary for the Promotion of Racial Equality in Bahia. Born in the city of Porto Alegre, Bairros is one of the most renowned activist-scholars of the Brazilian Black Movement. 

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

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Spring 2016 Film Series - Vou rifar meu coração (2011)

A dive into the Brazilian romantic, sentimental and erotic imaginary based on the works of the most important composers of the genre of popular romantic music known affectionately as "brega" (cheesy).

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

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Spring 2016 Film Series - Eu Sou Carlos Imperial (I Am Carlos Imperial, 2015)

Carlos Imperial helped make Roberto Carlos, Elis Regina, and Tim Maia famous; he stole songs and wrote even bigger hits; but have you heard of him? A documentary as brash and scandalous as its reprehensible subject.

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

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