Brazil Initiative

Housed at the Watson School, the Brazil Initiative was established with two strategic goals: to make Brown the best university for the study of Brazil outside of Brazil and to be a hub for research collaborations between Brown faculty members and Brazilian scholars and researchers.

About the Brazil Initative

The Brazil Initiative facilitates and coordinates lectures, seminars, conferences, research partnerships and grants, as well as a host of other resources on campus related to Brazil. Devised both in the spirit of collaboration and as a free-standing clearinghouse for academic and research activities, the Initiative functions as a foundation for interdisciplinary conversation, a source of support for Brown's already superb Brazilian studies, and an incubator to develop emergent fields of study.

The focus is both specialized and far-reaching and includes an annual conference, research grants in the sciences, and a film festival, among many other activities. The Initiative will be involved in the co-sponsorship and coordination of events related to language and culture, environmental sustainability and climate change, democracy and governance, economic development, and social inclusion, to name just a few.

It is the hope of those working on the Brazil Initiative to bring often disparate fields of research connected to Brazil into conversation; strengthen networking, internship opportunities, and alumni connections in Brazil; and further foster Brown's excellence as a premier institution for research and scholarship in Brazilian studies.

Director

Upcoming Events

Past Events

Resources

Brown University offers a host of opportunities for collaborative grants with Brazil, student funding in Brazilian Studies, and library collections for those pursuing research on Brazil.

Student Funding

Belda Family Fund for Brazilian Studies

The Belda Family Fund supports the programming of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.

Karina Lago Fund

Established posthumously in honor of Brown alumna Karina Lago '95, the Karina Lago Fund provides further resources to Portuguese and Brazilian Studies for an annual prize and academic programming.

Library

Brasiliana Collection

Based originally on the Thomas E. Skidmore Collection of 6,000 volumes on nineteenth and twentieth-century Brazil, these holdings of Brazil-related materials at the Brown University Library are in process of considerable expansion.

Brasiliana Collections Curator

Opening the Archives Project

This collaboration between Brown University and State University of Maringá, Paraná contains 10,000 U.S. State Department documents from the 1960s and 70s related to the military dictatorship that have been digitized and indexed for public access.

Portugal and Brazil Collection, John Carter Brown Library

The John Carter Brown Library has a spectacular collection of books from pre-independence Brazil.

Thomas Skidmore Archives

Professor Thomas Skidmore donated much of his personal Brazil papers to Brown libraries to further enrich their collections on race, nationalism, history and culture.

Beyond Brown

BRASA

BRASA, the Brazilian Studies Association, is the key international association promoting the discipline of Brazilian Studies, particularly in the social sciences and humanities.

Afro-Brazilian Literature Portal, Federal University of Minas Gerais

The Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) has a portal highlighting its research project to investigate the literary production of the Afro-descendant population throughout Brazil's history.