Useful Information

This page will be a collecting point for useful information for the participants. It will be updated as information becomes available - newest information will be at the top.

From Raj: (5/28)

Brasilia Lecture Outline

Mon     Jun 15 9:00     FORCES DRIVING THE TRANSFORMATION OF BRAZIL’S RURAL LANDSCAPE AND AGRICULTURAL POLICIES

Aercio S. Cunha, Senior Advisor, Office of the Legislative Counsel of the Chamber of the Deputies

From Raj: (5/26)

Sao Paulo Lecture Outlines (preliminary - subject to update)

Mon     Jun 08 9:00     AN INTRODUCTION TO BRAZILIAN HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Professor Lilian Moritz Schwarcz – Anthropology Department, Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo/ Professor Geraldo Souza Dias, School of Communication and Art of  the University of Sao Paulo

TOPICS: 1) Territory and settlement; 2) Portuguese colonial rule; 3) Indigenous and African slaves; 4) Economic cycles; 5) Independence: a Portuguese Prince becomes Emperor in the Tropics; 6) Republic: old social structures, new political challenges; 7) Authoritarian modernization: 1930, 1964; 8) Redemocratization: catching up with the future; 9) The challenge of nation building: race and the evolutionist thought in the 19th century; 10) An old quest: the search for national identity, from Silvio Romero to modernist literature; 11) A hybrid culture; 12) The Brazilian language; 13) Native Indian and African vocabulary, toponimy, customs, and cultural traditions in Brazilian culture; 14) Brazilian culture in a global age               

Mon     Jun 08 10:45     VALUES IN BRAZILIAN SOCIETY: PAST AND PRESENT

Professor Maria Lucia Montes  - Anthropology Department, Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo

TOPICS: 1) Historical permanence and cultural dynamics; 2) Casa Grande & Senzala (The sugar plantation mansion and the slave quarters, translated as The masters and the slaves) by Gilberto Freyre: Violence, sexual attraction, and cuisine in the making of a colonial society; 3) An ambivalent cultural hybridization; 4) Hierarchy and aristocratic value system – The debasement of manual work as “natural” origin of social inequality; 5) Raizes do Brasil (Brazilian Roots) by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda: The “cordial” man; 6) Individualism, adventurous audacity, and emotional behavior; 7) Violence and arbitrariness, warmth and affection; 8) A casa e a rua (The home and the street) by Roberto da Matta: Private and public in social life; 9) Racist, who? Me? Never (say it in public) - Origins of an ashamed racism; 10) The Brazilian “jeitinho”: between creative resourcefulness and “getting away with it”; 11) The public, the private, and the” jeitinho”: Origins of political corruption; 12) The role of religion (“the other world”) as a cultural and social mediation: Traditional Catholicism - social integration and a culture of celebration and reciprocity with the divine; 13) The role of religion (“the other world”) as a cultural and social mediation II: “Modern” Neopentecostalism: The spirit of capitalism (without) the Protestant ethics in a world of magic; 14) A saying you may hear any time:“Você sabe com quem está falando?” (Do you know who you´re talking to?) – The Brazilian dilemmas: the choice between individuals and persons; reason and emotion; the rule of law and the realm of privilege  

Tue     Jun 09 9:00     SOME ISSUES ON BRAZILIAN ECONOMY AND SOCIETY TODAY

Professor Ricardo Abramovai – Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of São Paulo

TOPICS: 1) The Brazilian economic dilemma: Development and environment preservation; 2) The potential of mineral resources: oil, iron and other mineral ore (Petrobras and Vale do Rio Doce Co.); 3) “Dirty” x “clean” energy: oil, thermoelectric and hydroelectric power, ethanol, wind and solar energy; 4) Agrobusiness x traditional and family-based agriculture; 5) Droughts and the São Francisco River; 6) Industry – South and North; 7) Industry and the new developments in technology; 8) Technology and the services sector; 9) The financial system; 10) Brazil and the world economic crisis; 11) Unequal and combined development and social inequality; 12) Perspectives for the Brazilian economy in a changing world

Tue     Jun 09 10:00     POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZIL

Professor Kurt von Mettenheim, Depatment of Administration, Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV)

TOPICS: 1) Nation states, the financial system and business corporations in a global world; 2) State & private business and finance control in Brazil: the consequences of Neo-liberal policies; 3) The Brazilian political system; 4) Political parties: representation, alliances, and governability; 5) Political parties: government, opposition, and the coming 2010 Presidential elections; 6) The Federal Legislative power: private interests, governability, and crisis in the Chamber of Representatives; 7) The Federal Judiciary: the unbalance of powers, economic interests, and the "judicialization" of politics; 8) The Federal Executive Power: Facing the economic dilemma; 9) The Plan for Accelerated Development: infra-structure works; 10) The environmental and social costs of development; 11) The Federal Executive power: Facing social inequality; 12) Fome Zero, Bolsa Família (Zero Hunger, Family Grant) and other economic assistance programs; 13) Policies of social inclusion and affirmative action: Human Rights, racial and gender equality; 14) Environment issues, global financial crisis and the redistribution of powers in a world scale: Brazilian perspectives in International Affairs

Wed     Jun 10 9:00     BRAZILIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM            

Professor Myriam Krasilchik,  Faculty of Education, University of Sao Paulo/ Professor Flavia Schilling, Faculty of Education, University of Sao Paulo

TOPICS: 1) Education in Brazil: a historical overview; 2) The educational system; 3) Primary school education: regional distortions; 4) From primary to secondary school: failure and drop outs; 5) Training the labor force: the national system of Federal Technical Schools; 6) Training the labor force II: technical education provided by the National Service of Industry and Commerce; 7) The higher education system: isolated Schools, Federal, State and private Universities; 8) National policies for education; 9) National parameters for Curriculum development; 10) Brazilian education: achievements and current challenges; 11) Universalization of access to and improvement of quality in education; 12) Public and private education: inequalities and distortions; 13) Affirmative action in education: racial quotas; 14) The status of the MST (Movimento dos Sem Terra) schools, maintained by the Landless Peasants Movement 

Wed     Jun 10 10:45     COUNTRY, CITY, METROPOLIS

Professor José de Souza Martins – Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo/ Professor Fraya Frehse – Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo

TOPICS: 1) Social stratification, modernization and culture in rural-urban transition: historical processes and recent changes; 2) Slavery after the Abolition: culture, formal education, and social status; 3) Immigrants: cultural diversity and social integration; 4) From country to town: internal migrations; 5) The country and the city: rural and urban culture and the challenge of modernization; 6) From city to metropolis: cultural diversity  in metropolitan São Paulo; 7) Downtown and suburban áreas, social stratification and the dynamics of culture: “traditional” and “modern” Brazilian urban culture; 8) Cultural diversity and religion: a space for traditional culture resistance; 9) The Brazilian melting pot; 10) Multicuralism in a global age; 11) “Confinement” multiculturalism: cultural diversity and urban ghettos; 12) “Transitional” multiculturalism: between urban spaces, social strata, and cultural values; 13) Family and the inner space of emotions and affections: cultural diversity and resistance; 14) Social stratification, citizenship and political culture: tradition, modernity, and cultural diversity in the “transitional” multiculturalism of the metropolises

Thu     Jun 11 9:00     BRAZILIAN FAMILY: PAST AND PRESENT

Professorr Cynthia Sarti, Department of Social Sciences, São Paulo  Medical School (Federal University)

TOPICS: 1) The Iberian patriarchal family model; 2) Ladies and women slaves: work, violence, and freedom in the plantation and the city; 3) Rank, race, and marriage in the colonial family; 4) Public religious celebrations: an occasion to indulge in the family's lack of control; 5) The offsprings of sexual debauchery: registration of bastards abandoned at the Misericórdia charity house, according to mother’s rank and race; 6) A young lady’s education awaiting marriage in the late 19th century; 7) Women’s entrance in the labour market and the changes in family structure; 8) Individualism and personal freedom in the feminist movement era; 9) Family and social class; 10) Upper class families: from discredit to renewed prestige of “bourgeois” marriage; 11) The poor rich boys and girls: school and society as caretakers; 12) Working class families: the care of the children; 13) Individualism and family solidarity for working class women; 14) Family ideology: moral values to mirror social contradictions

Thu     Jun 11 10:45     LITERATURE AND BRAZILIAN CULTURE

Professor Flavio Aguiar, Department of Literature, Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo/ Professor Antonio Dimas, Department of Literature, Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo

TOPICS: 1) Literacy and literature in Brazil: a historical overview; 2) European literary movements in Brazil: Baroque ethos and satire in the verses of Gregório de Matos; 3) A national sentiment within the frame of literary Classicism: the poetry of the rebellious Inconfidentes who forecasted Brazilian Independence; 4) The image of native Indians in the romantic literary construction of the nation: Gonçalves Dias and José de Alencar; 5) The tradition of oral popular verses turned into literature and music: lundus and modinhas by the poet Caldas Barbosa; 6) Romantic abolitionist poetry: Castro Alves; 7) Naturalism in the novels by Aluisio Azevedo; 8) Humor and irony in the Realist literature of a mulatto writer: Machado de Assis; 9) Scientific research and literary epic narrative to account for a historical episode: the Canudos war seen by Euclides da Cunha; 10) Regionalist literature: the novels by Graciliano Ramos, Rachel de Queiroz, and José Lins do Rego; 11) Modernism in art and literature: Oswald de Andrade and the Anthropofagic Manifesto; 12) In search of national identity: folklore and popular narratives in Macunaima, a modernist novel by Mário de Andrade; 13) Philology and regional speech in novels of a universal scope: João Guimarães Rosa; 14) Urban modernity: poetry turned into popular music and Bossa Nova: Vinicius de Morais, Chico Buarque de Holanda, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil; 15) Contemporary writers: a certain East recalled in the Amazon – Milton Hatoum

From Raj: (5/20)