Recorded April 19, 2022
Below is the original description of the event.
Event description:
Until recently, Black women writers and artists have long been excluded from the cultural mainstream in Brazil. However, Black women have actively participated in and interjected political, social, and cultural debates on race, gender, and class for centuries, such as authors, journalists, and artists Maria Firmina dos Reis, Antonieta de Barros, Carolina Maria de Jesus, and Maria Auxiladora. This roundtable discussion between writer Conceição Evaristo and artist Rosana Paulino, two prominent Brazilian Black feminist cultural producers of the present-day, and moderated by the geographer and cultural studies scholar Geny Ferreira Guimarães will consider the stakes of Black feminism as an artistic practice in Brazil while also making room for Black women to explore their own identities, struggles, and joys through creation.
The event will be in Portuguese with English interpretation.
Speakers:
Conceição Evaristo is a novelist, poet, and professor originally from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Her novels Ponciá Vicêncio (2003) and Becos da Memória (2006), short story collections Insubmissas lágrimas de mulheres (2011) and Olhos d’água (2014), and her poetry collection Poemas da recordação e outros movimentos (2016) have received numerous awards. Her writing examines the intersections of race, gender, and class, drawing from her own experiences as a Black woman in Brazil born in the favela, a practice she calls escrevivência, a portmanteau of escrita—writing—and vivência—life experience. In 2018, the Caribbean Philosophical Association awarded Evaristo its Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Federal Fluminense University and a Masters in Brazilian Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She continues her career as an educator, having taught and lectured at the Federal Fluminense University, Middlebury College, the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the State University of Bahia, and the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
Rosana Paulino is a visual artist, curator, and educator from São Paulo, Brazil. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Art from the University of São Paulo and a specialization in print-making from the London Print Studio. She mixes media like print-making, sculpture, photography, and sewing to examine perceptions and stereotypes of Black women in Brazil. Her expositions have received national and international acclaim, including, most recently, Tecido Social (2011), Assentamento (2013), Mulheres Negras (2014), Atlântico Vermelho (2016), and A Costura da Memória (2018/19), the latter of which made her the first Black woman in Brazil to have a solo exhibition at the State of São Paulo’s Pinacoteca.
Moderator: Geny Ferreira Guimarães is a Black feminist geographer and cultural studies scholar from Rio de Janeiro where she is a professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the Federal University of Bahia and a Masters in Social Sciences from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. Specializing in the racialization of space, Guimarães is recognized for her work on black and antiracist geography, Afro-Brazilian and Afro-diasporic geographies and literatures, cultural patrimony, and ethno-racial relations.
Cosponsors:
Event co-hosted by the Black Studies Collaboratory and the Center for Latin American Studies at UC Berkeley. Co-sponsors include the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, as well as Associate Professor of English Nadia Ellis. Event organized by John A. Mundell.
The event will be in Portuguese with English interpretation – O evento será em português com interpretação em inglês.