See below for details on two talks on Brazil this Wednesday evening by two
outstanding DRCLAS visiting scholars (both, regrettably, will take place at
6pm.)
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DRCLAS's Boston Area Workshop for Latin American History presents:
"Brazil, 1978: The Dictatorship Dismantled"
A work-in-progress portrait of the last months of the political opening
under the presidency of General Ernesto Geisel, from the October 1977
firing of Army Minister Silvio Frota to General João Figueiredo's March
1979 presidential inauguration. 1978 was the year in which two words
reappeared in the Brazilian political vocabulary: strike and amnesty. Along
with them emerged a new figure: Lula.
ELIO GASPARI is the Lemann Visiting Scholar for Spring 2005 at Harvard
University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Gaspari
is one of Brazil's most respected journalists and historians, currently
writing weekly columns for the leading newspapers Folha de São Paulo and O
Globo (and syndicated in ten other newspapers). He has been widely
acclaimed for his four-volume history of the Brazilian military
dictatorship and its transition to democracy, based on extensive interviews
and special access to military archives: The Dictatorship Ashamed, The
Dictatorship Unmasked, The Dictatorship Defeated, and The Dictatorship
Cornered. The first and second volumes were awarded the Brazilian Academy
of Letter's award in the essay category in 2003. For the forthcoming fifth
and final volume--tentatively titled The Dictatorship Dismantled and
covering the 1978-1979 period--he is currently engaged in archival research
at the Harvard libraries. This talk will feature a sneak-preview into this
eagerly awaited book.
Wednesday, May 4
6:00 - 7:30pm
DRCLAS - 61 Kirkland St., Cambridge - Conference Room (2nd floor)
http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/about/directions
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The Sackler Museum's M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series presents:
"Ancient Symbols, Modern Visions: Latin American Visual Languages"
"Infinite Space and Today's News"
(formerly entitled "Carnival of Perception")
With certain digressions, Guy Brett's lecture will explore the combination
of a cosmic longing with social consciousness in mid-20th century Brazilian
avant-garde art.
GUY BRETT is the Peggy Rockefeller Visiting Scholar for Spring Term 2005 at
Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
Internationally recognized as one of the most influential writers and
thinkers on contemporary art, Brett occupies a distinctive position as an
independent curator and critical historian of the visual arts. He has
championed artists regularly left out of the international surveys,
particularly artists from Latin America, whose importance within the
history of modern art is now being fully acknowledged. During his stay at
Harvard, he will develop a project investigating the notion of the "void"
in the work of Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel and other
Brazilian and Latin American artists. His research will also explore the
role played by the box-format and book-format in Brazilian avant-garde art
from 1960, and the differences in the origins of conceptual art in Latin
America, the United States, and Europe in response to formal and
socio-political concerns.
Wednesday, May 4
6:00pm
Sackler Museum Auditorium
http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/information/directions.html
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