David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS)

BRAZIL SEMESTER AT HARVARD (Spring 2005)
presents the following three events on Brazil this week:

Tuesday, March 22 (noon-2pm, at DRCLAS):
          "Does Brazilian Education aim at Racial Democracy?"
          Roseli Fischmann

Wednesday, March 23 (noon-2pm, at DRCLAS):
          "A Conversation on Brazilian History and the Role of Harvard and Foreign Scholars in the Study of Brazil"
          Thomas Skidmore & Kenneth Maxwell

Wednesday, March 23 (4-6pm, at the Barker Center):
          "Memory, Mistrust, and an American Anthropologist's Suicide in Brazil"
        Jessica Callaway

See full details on these events & speakers below. Free & open to the public.

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Also please note, as you may have noticed, that dissemination of Harvard/DRCLAS Brazil-related events, conferences, research & cultural activities is now taking place via this new moderated list-serve, generally using the easy-to-remember email: brazil@fas.harvard.edu (which should appear in your inbox as "DRCLAS Brazil Program").
If you would prefer not to receive these emails --- which will be kept to a minimum, for informational purposes only --- you may unsubscribe at:
http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/programs/brazil/listserv

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"Does Brazilian Education aim at Racial Democracy?"

An analysis of racial and cultural issues in Brazilian educational policy, matters historically difficult to tackle in Brazil---especially with regards to the Afro-Brazilian and indigenous populations.  This research focuses on how the Brazilian school system, in all its levels, reflects and simultaneously produces the racism and discrimination evident in Brazilian society.  The presentation will also examine the policies that have been proposed and implemented recently, with special focus on their impact in overcoming racism and discrimination.

ROSELI FISCHMANN, Visiting Scholar of Political Psychology, Department of Psychology, Harvard University; Professor of Graduated Studies, Department of Educational Administration and Economics of Education, University of São Paulo (USP). Author of numerous books and articles, Professor Fischmann was responsible for proposing and writing the document Cultural Plurality, a part of the National Curriculum Parameters of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, applied throughout the country since 1997. She is a regular contributor to the Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense.

Tuesday, March 22 (12:00-2:00PM)
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies - DRCLAS - Conference Room (2nd floor) - 61 Kirkland St., Cambridge
For directions, see: http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/index.pl/about/directions
Light lunch served at noon; presentation starts at 12:30pm.
Sponsored by DRCLAS's weekly Tuesday Seminar Series.

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BRAZILIAN HISTORICAL & CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES: REFLECTIONS FROM HARVARD

"A Conversation on Brazilian History and the Role of Harvard and Foreign Scholars in the Study of Brazil"

THOMAS SKIDMORE, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Professor of Modern Latin American History and Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies Emeritus at Brown University and one of the best known interpreters of Brazil in the United States.  He is the author of numerous works including: Politics in Brazil 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy; Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought; and The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil: 1964-1985, which are considered classics in the field of modern Brazilian history.  After obtaining his PhD at Harvard in 1960, Professor Skidmore taught here for several years.

KENNETH MAXWELL, Visiting Professor, History Department, and Senior Fellow at DRCLAS, Harvard University.  This semester he is teaching the courses "Turning Points in Brazilian History" and "Brazil Between Revolutions, 1776-1789."  His latest book is a new edition of the classic Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal 1750-1808, widely known in Brazil in translation as A Devassa da Devassa.  Other books include Naked Tropics: Essays on Empire and Other Rogues; Mais Malandros; Chocolate, Piratas e Outros Malandros; The Making of Portuguese Democracy; and Pombal: Paradox of the Enlightenment.

Wednesday, March 23 (12:00-2:00PM)
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies - DRCLAS - Conference Room (2nd floor) - 61 Kirkland St., Cambridge
For directions, see: http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/index.pl/about/directions
Brazilian lunch served at noon; presentation starts at 12:30pm.
Sponsored by DRCLAS's Brazilian Studies Program.

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"Memory, Mistrust, and an American Anthropologist's Suicide in Brazil"

An analysis of the problems of fiction and memory through a reading of the Brazilian writer Bernardo Carvalho's 2002 novel, Nove Noites, which explores the enigma surrounding the suicide of an American anthropologist in Brazil. Told in the voices of several narrators---and excerpting texts related to the actual case---the novel ends up eliding the problems of fictional and ethnographic representation.

JESSICA CALLAWAY, Doctoral Student, Comparative Literature; and Resident Tutor, Cabot House, Harvard University.

Wednesday, March 23 (4:00-6:00PM)
Barker Center, Room 133
For directions, see http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~humcentr/generalinfo.html
Sponsored by the Humanities Center's Cross-Cultural Poetics & Rhetoric Seminar Series.


Um abraço, Tomas

Tomás Amorim
Brazilian Studies Program Coordinator & Research Associate
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS)
Harvard University
http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/brazil