Brazilian Studies and Portuguese
Brazilian Studies and Portuguese
The Center, which began as the first Institute of Brazilian Studies in the United States in 1947, maintains its historic ties to Brazil and strength in Portuguese. The College currently has 3 positions in Portuguese (Earl Fitz, Emmanuelle Oliveira, Marcio Bahia), with several professors of Spanish actively engaging in comparative Brazilian work. We have an additional 5 full-time, tenured or tenure-track Brazilianists (Marshall Eakin, Jane Landers and Celso Castilho in History; Beth Conklin in Anthropology). In addition, the Owen School of Management keeps close ties to the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and regularly hosts groups of students from USP and there are several projects focused on Brazil based in the Medical School.
News
VANDERBILT AND TULANE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE AND BRAZILIAN CULTURE SUMMER PROGRAM IN SÃO PAULO
Vanderbilt and Tulane offered an intensive language and cultural studies program for the first time in Summer 2011. Nineteen graduate and undergraduate students from Vanderbilt, Tulane, Duke, Columbia, Rutgers and the University of New Mexico enrolled in the 6-week immersion program. Students received Portuguese language classes at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) and lived with local families. Tulane professor Edith Wolfe taught a course on Brazilian culture and literature and accompanied the students on a number of excursions in São Paulo and beyond. The program is FLAS-approved and will be offered again in 2012. Laura Sellers, a second year master’s student in Vanderbilt’s Latin American studies program, had high praise for the program: “The opportunity to study Portuguese and Brazilian history and culture while in the diverse and exciting city of São Paulo allowed me to improve my language skills and to make connections across disciplines that probably would not have happened any place else.”
Click here to see FULL list of Brazilian Portuguese Programs for SUMMER 2012.
BRAZILIAN STUDIES WORKING GROUP
Faculty from the Departments of Spanish & Portuguese, History, Anthropology, and Latin American Studies comprise the core members of the Brazilian Studies Working Group. The group met five times during the last academic year, and with support from CLAS helped organize the visit of three renowned scholars: Rafael Marquese of the University of São Paulo, Walter Moser of the University of Ottawa, and Luis Nicolau Parés of the Federal University of Bahia. The group also revived “Brazil Week” at Vanderbilt, led by Márcio Bahia and Isleide Zissimos.
One focus of the Brazilian Studies Working Group for the 2011-12 year will be discussing the “Inter-American” concept as an organizing principle for our continued explorations of Brazilian history, literature, culture, politics, and economics. Elaborated by Earl Fitz, this concept promotes an integrated approach to Brazilian studies, considering the field from a hemispheric perspective.
E-COUNCIL PRESIDENT RECEIVES FULBRIGHT TO TEACH IN BRAZIL
Senior engineering student Pauline Roteta has been selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Brazil.
Roteta will graduate in May with a major in civil engineering and a minor in Chinese. In August she will begin work at an asset management firm in New York. The following year she will spend in Brazil teaching English and studying the correlation between national English education programs and the effectiveness of microfinance programs.
As co-president of Manna International, Roteta led Alternative Spring Break projects in Ecuador and Argentina and took the lead in helping raise more than $40,000 in funding to support scholarships and service projects at Manna sites in Latin America. She also helped develop and manage seven service sites in Nashville, working with over 370 student volunteers between the projects.
Brazil in the news
Census shows that 6% of Brazilian population lives in favelas (Portuguese)
Brazil census shows African-Brazilians in the majority for the first time (The Guardian, November 2011)
Affirming a divide: Black Brazilians are much worse off than they should be. But what is the best way to remedy that? (The Economist, January 2012)
Links
Comments Off