Brazilian Studies at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies
At Tulane University, you have a unique opportunity to specialize in Brazilian Studies. Tulane is a Research 1 University with a high concentration of Latin American specialists. The possibility of combining academic strength and engaged learning gives our program a special flavor. The Stone Center offers highly competitive tuition-waivers and stipend support for highly qualified students pursuing M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Latin American Studies. Students in our Brazilian Studies track are active participants in the intellectual life of the Stone Center and Latin Americanist researchers As a graduate student you will have many opportunities to participate actively in weekly seminars, research projects, and fieldwork activities, as you immerse yourself in an intense academic life led by a community of scholars who are doing cutting-edge research on Brazil in anthropology, art history, communication, ethnomusicology, film studies, history, literature, and cultural studies.
Research currently conducted by our faculty include the relation of art, music, literature, performance and mass media to democratic citizenship and social change in Brazil; how rhetorical structures constitute and are constituted by political processes; the relationships among films, memoirs, novels, TV telenovelas, and the institutional measures implemented by the State to reckon with the military-civilian dictatorship; the elaborate allegories of Brazilian society produced to describe the stark contradictions between modernity and underdevelopment under authoritarian rule; the value of poems, experimental prose, short fiction, songs, films, artworks, photographs, cartoons, police records, censorship files, and alternative journalism to demonstrate the impact of the counterculture on alternative lifestyles; the reception and impact of television news and telenovelas on viewers' interpretations of political issues in Brazil; how the interactions between television, democratization, and the mobilization of civil society have shaped the quality of political accountability in Brazil; the role of stigmatizing media representations of race, gender, and class of the partially incorporated so-called' new middle class in Brazil's contemporary shift to the right; the role of performance in establishing group cohesion among immigrant communities in the peripheral communities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; the aesthetics of space in the works of Brazilian artists, architects, city planners, and politicians from the 1930s through 1960s; human rights, feminisms, violence, and racial oppression from the perspective of the state and civil society; the interrelationships between the artistic avant-garde and popular culture; the history of relations between citizenship and music in Brazil; the relation of rural and indigenous groups to the natural environment; and issues of public health as they affect public opinion, citizenship and welfare and wellbeing.
Faculty in Brazilian Studies
Adrian Anagnost, Ph.D., Chicago. Assistant Professor of Art History. Art, Urbanism, Brazil.
Rebecca Atencio, Ph.D., Wisconsin. Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese. Contemporary Brazilian Literature and Culture, Political Violence and Memory, Gender and Sexuality.
Idelber Avelar, Ph.D., Duke. Professor of Spanish and Portuguese. Postdictatorial Culture, Southern Cone and Brazilian Literature and Culture, Identity and Latinamericanism.
William Balée, Ph.D., Columbia. Professor. Brazil, Ethnoecology, Ethnobotany.
Felipe Fernandes Cruz, Ph.D., Texas. Assistant Professor of History. Modern Brazil, History of Technology.
Christopher Dunn, Ph.D., Brown. Professor of Spanish and Portuguese. Brazil, Cultural Studies, Brazilian Culture, African Diaspora Studies, Popular Music.
Patrick Egan, Ph.D., North Carolina. Assistant Professor. International Political Economy, Latin American and European Politics, International Relations.
Annie Gibson, Ph.D., Tulane. Administrative Assistant Professor. Director of Study Abroad. Brazil, Cuba, Cultural Studies.
Carl Kendall, Ph.D., Rochester. Professor. Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences. Director of Center for Global Health Equity. Medical Anthropology, Health Disparities, HIV/AIDS Andean, Brazil, Africa.
Diogo de Lima, Conservatório Maestro Julião, SÄo Paulo, Brazil. Senior Professor of Practice. Brazil, Jazz, Dance, Modern Dance.
Ana López, Ph.D., Iowa. Professor of Communication. Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, and Director, Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute. Mass Communication, Film, Cultural Studies, Popular Culture.
Megwen Loveless, Ph.D., Harvard. Senior Professor of Practice/Director, Basic Language Program in Portuguese. Brazil, Portuguese Language, Ethnography of Brazilian Music.
Vicki Mayer, Ph.D., UC San Diego. Professor of Communication. Associate Dean for Academic Initiatives and Curriculum. Media Production and Communications Infrastructure in Brazil, and for U.S. Latinos.
Mauro Porto, Ph.D., UC San Diego. Associate Professor of Communication. Brazil, Media and Politics.
Stephanie C. Porras, Ph.D., Courtauld Institute of Art. Assistant Professor. Flemish Artists and the Americas, Mexico and Brazil.
Daniel Sharp, Ph.D., Texas. Associate Professor of Music. Ethnomusicology, Brazil.
Rachel Stein, Ph.D., Columbia. Research & Instruction Librarian. Latin American & Iberian Press and Print Cultures.
Edith Wolfe, Ph.D., Texas. Administrative Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies. Assistant Director/Undergraduate Programs. Latin American Art, Modernism in Latin America.
