News Archive 2018

Spring Film Series 2018 - Divinas Divas (Divine Divas, Leandra Leal, 2016)

“Divinas Divas offers a look into the lives of the pioneer generation of Brazil’s transvestite performers and drag artists of the 1960s. Using archival footage and performances, as well as recent interviews with the performers, Leal offers a view into their lives and how, by simply performing, they were challenging the conservatism of the time.” (IndieWire)

7:30p.m. – 9:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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The State of Democracy in Brazil

6 p.m. – 8 p.m.   Location Change: Joukowsky Forum

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Allan da Rosa – Ancestrality, Imaginaries and Black Daily Life in São Paulo

12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.   Joukowsky Forum

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Spring Film Series 2018 - Favela Gay (Rodrigo Felha, 2014)

“Favela Gay tells the story of eleven individuals in their own words. Living in eight slums (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro, these members of the LGBTQ community – two transgender women, a crossdressing man, a travesti (in South America, a person who was designated male at birth who has a feminine, transfeminine or femme gender identity) prostitute, a famous carnival dancer, two community activists, and even a young man who used to be transgender, but transitioned back – have fought prejudice and seen some of the most unsavoury sides of the city.” (Sounds and Colours)

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

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Daryle Williams - Redeeming Ham, Again: Slave Emancipation, Race, and Fine Arts in Brazil

Among Latin Americanists, Redemption of Ham (Modesto Brocos y Gómez, 1895) is an arrestingly familiar artistic representation of race mixture in Brazil. The appeal of Brocos’ allegorical treatment of the enigmatic Old Testament tale known as the "Curse of Ham" is conventionally framed around the troubled history of racial thought and anti-black racism in post-emancipation Brazil. Paradoxically, Redemption remains thinly contextualized in the canvas’ immediate historical context of gradual abolition and Brocos’ experiences with fomerly enslaved black people. This talk looks anew at Redemption and its author to explore the entwined destinies of slave emancipation, race, and fine arts in the largest and most enduring slave society of the Americas. 

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

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Bruno Carvalho - Imaginable Futures: Clarice Lispector, Brasília, and the Anthropocene

Often identified as edenic in the colonial era, Brazil was hailed as the "land of the future" by Stefan Zweig in 1941, and seen as "condemned to the modern" by Mário Pedrosa in the 1950s. The talk will discuss Brasília in the context of Brazilian imaginaries of the future, focusing on Clarice Lispector's writings about the city, from the early 1960s. Her fiction, full of foreclosed futures and resistance toward redemptive possibilities, will be read in light of contemporary debates about the Anthropocene.

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

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Spring 2018 Film Series - Abrindo o Armário (Opening the Closet, Dario Menezes and Luis Abramo, 2016)

The film dives into the process of liberation and conquests of the gay movement in Brazil. Through interviews, archival images and artistic performances, the film shows how homosexuals from different generations faced resistance, conquered spaces and fought for the right to construct a political, social and collective identity. (Globo Filmes)

7:30p.m. – 9:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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CANCELED Zachary Morgan - Neither Slave nor Citizen: State Control of Brazilian Free Blacks in the 19th Century

CANCELED. The study of Brazilian race and slavery in the nineteenth century is too often framed by the structure of abolitionist legislation; first that applied to the cessation of the Atlantic slave trade leading up to 1850, and then to the abolition of slavery itself before the passage of the Golden Law in 1888. Traditional and contemporary scholarship points to a lack of segregationist law as central to understanding Brazil’s post abolition racial hierarchy.  Given the comparatively large size of Brazil’s free black population in the first decade of the nineteenth century (free Afro-Brazilians represented a plurality, a larger population than whites or enslaved Africans) my current research examines how state supported institutions such as orphanages, the police, and the military, alongside regional and national legislation, targeted and controlled the lives of free Afro-Brazilians before and after final abolition.

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

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Kleber Amancio - Conformities and Silences: The Representation of Blacks in the Brazilian Visual Arts (1637-1930)

This talk intends to be a narrative about the Black presence in the Brazilian visual arts. My purpose is to identify “if”, “when” and “how” these subjects appear in art works. To achieve this target it is necessary to investigate this presence/absence without losing sight of the respective historical context. From Franz Post to Di Cavalcanti, passing through other artists like Jean Baptiste Debret, Antonio Rafael Pinto Bandeira, Henrique Bernardelli, Tarsila do Amaral, etc., the moments of silence and representations are both revealing to historians. Dissimilar works like Alegoria da lei do ventre livre (1878) by Miguel Navarro y Cañizares, Redenção de Cam (1895) by Modesto Brocos and Retrato de Preto (1906) by Arthur Timotheo da Costa show us that these pieces, more than reproducing discussions that take place in society, are rather a type of thought that through material means gains concreteness; creates patterns of behavior, postulates interpretations and effectively acts upon reality.

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

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Spring Film Series 2018 - São Paulo em Hi-Fi (São Paulo in Hi-Fi, Lufe Steffen, 2013)

An historical documentary about Sao Paulo's gay night life during the 60's, 70's and 80's. With testimonials from people who lived through that time and images of unforgettable shows at classical night clubs of the city. Bringing back to memory the stars, the heroes, and even the bad guys: military dictatorship and AIDS epidemic. (The Movie DB)

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

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CANCELLED: Stanley Gacek - Brazil's Labor Law Reform: What Does It Mean for Workers?

CANCELLED Stanley Gacek, Senior Advisor for Global Strategies at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), is a North American labor lawyer who has followed the labor movement and labor politics in Brazil for 37 years. He will provide a trade union and pro-worker perspective on the current state of Brazilian labor relations, reviewing the most recent labor law reform and assessing its drastic effects on Brazilian workers and their unions. He also will discuss how the Brazilian labor movement can respond to these challenges. 

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

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Spring Film Series 2018 - Waiting for B (Abigail Spindel e Paulo Cesar Toledo, 2017)

“Millions of Beyoncé fans can't be wrong! Two months in concert queue outside a Brazilian stadium in a country where music is much more than just pop. (...) 'Waiting for B' is a compelling portrait of an entire (fan) culture, where pop is political and a twerk is a protesting stinky finger pointed at society's narrow standards. Queen B is absolutely 'irreplacable', but it is her dedicated fans who put the crown on her head.” (Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival)

7:30p.m. – 9:30p.m.   Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Marcos Cueto - Lost in Translation: Brazil, AIDS, Antiretrovirals and Global Health

In 1996, Brazil was the first country in the world to provide full and free access to antiretrovirals as part of a broad prevention and treatment health program. This decision was challenged by powerful pharmaceutical companies and even by the US government. The government of Brazil launched an international campaign to promote access to these medicines as a global public goods and basic human rights. In 2001, international health agencies, like the World Health Organization, adopted the Brazilian model but were unable to implement it in other developing countries. This presentation will discuss the meanings and vicissitudes of universal access to antiretrovirals in global health during the turn of the 20th century.

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

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Sonia Roncador - White Trash à brasileira: Immigration and the “Problem of Acclimatization” in Nineteenth-Century Rio

Drawing from mid nineteenth-century newspaper crônicas and medical pamphlets on European immigrants’ uncertain acclimatization in miasmatic (toxic) Rio’s inner city, my talk challenges these immigrants’ “unconditional whiteness,” and ultimately proposes to revise the paradigm of whitening framing discourses of immigration in Brazil.

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

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Spring 2018 Film Series - Madame Satã (Karim Aïnouz, 2002)

"Madame Sata" is a portrait of Joao Francisco dos Santos, a flamboyant, fiercely proud drag queen with a hair-trigger temper, who became a legend in the clubs and slums and prisons of Brazil. Born about 1900, dead in 1976, he spent nearly 30 of those years in prison, 10 of them for murder. "There's something eating me up inside," he tells a friend. Performing his drag act provides a release, but requires a lifestyle that attracts trouble.” (Roger Ebert)

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

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Brazil Initiative Spring 2018 Film Series

Running from February through May 2018,  the Brazil Initiative's Spring Film Series presents a selection of seven films, both feature films and documentaries, on LGBT experiences within Brazilian society. The series serves as a reminder as to the rich catalogue of LGBT-themed films in Brazil.

Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

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Spring 2018 Film Series - Elvis e Madona (Elvis and Madona, Marcelo Laffitte, 2010)

"Set in the vibrant Copacabana district of Rio de Janeiro, Elvis and Madona’s unlikely love help them chase dreams, deal with the obstacles that arise along the way and fulfill Madona’s plans for a spectacular drag show that redeems everyone.” (Huffington Post)

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

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Ana Lucia Araujo - Memory of Slavery and The Problem of Reparations in Brazil

Over the last two decades, like other former slave societies, Brazil witnessed the rise of several initiatives memorializing slavery in the public space. Although  the construction of monuments and memorials, and the organization of commemorative activities associated with the slave past can be considered as a form of symbolic reparations for slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, since the emergence of the abolitionist movement some social actors have emphasized the need of material and financial reparations to former slaves and their descendants. By making connections with the international context, this talk will explore the dialogues between memory of slavery and the demands of financial and material reparations of slavery in Brazil.

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

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