Conference on the Future of Brazilian Studies

On September 30-October 1, 2005, Brown University and the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) hosted a “Conference on the Future of Brazilian Studies in the United States.” The conference was the culmination of more than two years of discussions among a number of scholars in the United States who had been exchanging ideas about ways to promote Brazilian studies. The Committee on the Future of Brazilian Studies was organized with officials from BRASA as well as others who had not had a role in BRASA. We all resolved to bring together as many participants as possible at a meeting to discuss the state of Brazilian studies in the United States, and to begin to formulate an agenda for promoting Brazilian studies over the next decade.

All of those involved in the organization of the conference firmly believe in the importance of Brazil and Brazilian studies for the United States. Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world in land mass and population, with more than 180 million citizens, and the tenth largest economy on the planet. Portuguese is the seventh most widely spoken language in the world today. The key issue facing the conference organizers was how best to promote the expansion of Brazilian studies in the United States over the next decade. The organizers firmly believe that the promotion of Brazilian studies through the collaboration of a broad range of constituencies is in the best interest of all those organizations—in the public and private sectors—in the United States that are interested in Brazil: foundations, government agencies, think tanks, community organizations, as well as universities.

The Portuguese program at the University of Georgia offers degrees in Romance Languages (Brazilian and Portuguese Studies) with the major language as Portuguese and a minor at the undergraduate level, a MA in Romance Languages and a Ph.D. in Portuguese at the graduate level. In 2006-2007 it will have four doctoral candidates and four MA candidates. With the closing of the graduate program at UNC, Chapel Hill our department is the only State University in the South offering graduate degrees and one of two private and public institutions, Vanderbilt being the other.

Committee Members:
Severino J. Albuquerque, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Sonia Alvarez, President LASA University of Massachusetts. Amherst
Luis Bitencourt, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Chair: James N. Green, Brown University
John Burdick, Syracuse University
Marshall C. Eakin, Executive Director, BRASA, Vanderbilt University
Jeffrey Lesser, Emory University
Kenneth Maxwell, Harvard University
Timothy J. Power, President, BRASA, Florida International University
Susan C. Quinlan, University of Georgia, Athens
Kenneth Serbin, Vice-President, BRASA, University of San Diego
Joseph Straubhaar, University of Texas, Austin
Luiz F. Valente, Brown University
Barbara Weinstein, University of Maryland, College Park

Pictured: Susan C. Quinlan, former President of the Brazilian Studies Association, with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil and Professor-at-Large, Contemporary Brazil and Sociology, in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University.