Author Archives: Jeremiah LaMontagne

Exciting Spring 2013 Course by James Green

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James N. GreenJames N. Green is Professor of History and Brazilian Studies and a specialist on modern Brazilian history. As a young adventurer he traveled to Latin America with the plan to stay in Brazil for six months and ended up staying six years. There he participated in the opposition to the military regime and was a founder of the LGBT movement. After many other careers, he returned to academia to get a doctorate in Latin American history at UCLA. He has published two award-winning books, Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil and We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States. He has served as the President of the Brazilian Studies Association and is currently working as a consultant with the Brazilian National Truth Commission that is investigating the State’s violation of human rights during the military dictatorship. He is currently working on a biography of Herbert Daniel (1946-92), a former guerrilla fighter, alongside Brazil’s current president Dilma Rousseff, political exile, and AIDS activist.

In Spring 2013 he will be teaching:
LAS 403 Latin American Studies Seminar – Politics/Culture During the Brazilian Military Dictatorship
This seminar focuses on the political, social, economic, and cultural changes that took place in Brazil during the civilian-military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964-85. Using primary and secondary sources, as well as films and documentaries, we will examine why and how the generals took power, the role the U.S. government played before and after the coup d’etat in Brazilian affairs, the multiple political and cultural forms of opposition that emerged to challenge authoritarian rule, the process that led to democratization, and Brazil’s new role as a global player and an economic powerhouse. Prerequisites and Restrictions: This course is open to undergraduate students and graduate students who fulfill one of the following requirements: (a) the student has intermediate knowledge of Portuguese; (b) the student has taken at least one previous course in modern Latin American history or a class related to Brazil; (c) the student has spent time in Brazil; (d) the student is convincingly motivated to learn about recent Brazilian history.
Schedule: S01 1:30pm-4:20 Th.

PLAS Home Page
PLAS Spring ’13 Course List

Princeton’s João Biehl explores consequences of Brazil’s constitutional right to health

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In 2010, Edgar Lemos, a retired bus driver in Porto Alegre, Brazil, sued his government for failing to provide medication to treat his neurological disorder. It was his privilege to do so: Brazil and more than 100 other nations grant the right to health, which in Brazil has given rise to numerous lawsuits against the government for access to medicines of all kinds.

Princeton University anthropology professor João Biehl has documented the emergence of right-to-health litigation in that country over the past decade. Through visits to courtrooms and clinics to meet patients and record their stories, combined with rigorous evaluation of medical and legal data, Biehl, a native of Brazil, and his research team have created a detailed picture of who sues for treatment and why in this country of about 200 million people and an economy on the rise.

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Princeton University establishes strategic partnerships to enhance international research and learning

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Princeton University has established a strategic partnership with the University of São Paulo that will offer faculty and students at both institutions increased access to research and learning opportunities across disciplines and across borders.

The move comes on the heels of the signing of a similar agreement with Humboldt University in Berlin, and Princeton also is finalizing an agreement with the University of Tokyo. The University is establishing these strategic partnerships with peer institutions around the world as it continues its internationalization efforts, outlined in the 2007 “Princeton in the World” report. These strategic partnerships are in addition to the many institutional relationships that Princeton already has in place including faculty fellowships, student exchanges and study abroad programs.

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Photos from the PLAS lecture “Architecture as a Means of Social Transformation” on November 16, 2012

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Tilghman to travel to Brazil, Chile and Argentina

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Building on the University’s efforts to expand its presence in Latin America, University President Shirley Tilghman and four of her colleagues in the administration will travel to South America over fall break to formalize arrangements for a strategic partnership with the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

In her 2007 “Princeton in the World” report, Tilghman outlined the University’s plans to enhance its global presence in the face of a growing trend toward internationalization in higher education. In the past few years, Yale and New York University have made strides toward internationalization by opening campuses in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, respectively. While the University has not announced any similar plans to open a branch campus, it has begun to develop a relationship with Brazil specifically over the past few years. Continue reading →

Princeton acquires the papers of Vicente Leñero and Alejandro Rossi

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Alejandro Rossi at his desk [Alejandro Rossi Papers, 1812-2010, Box 31, Folder 6]

Alejandro Rossi at his desk [Alejandro Rossi Papers, 1812-2010, Box 31, Folder 6]

The Princeton University Library’s Manuscripts Division has recently added the papers of Vicente Leñero (1933- ) and of Alejandro Rossi (1932-2009) to its extensive collection ofarchives, manuscripts, and correspondence by Latin American writers and intellectuals.

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Giancarlo Mazzanti at the MoMa

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Giancarlo Mazzanti, who is spending the fall semester teaching at PLAS, is featured in the exhibition “9+1 Ways of Being Political” which just opened at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York. The exhibit will be on view until March 2013:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1313

Earlier in the summer Giancarlo’s work was featured in a New York Times article on Colombia:

New York Times: Past Its Golden Moment, Bogotá Clings to Hope

Giancarlo will be giving a talk about his work on November 6th at 12:00pm in 219 Burr Hall.

Jeremy Adelman interviewed by Veja magazine in Brazil

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Universidades de todos os cantos do mundo estão engajadas no processo de internacionalização. Enviar estudantes ao exterior e atrair jovens estrangeiros é motivo de preocupação também no Brasil, que ainda amarga índices tímidos em relação a emergentes como China e Índia. Nos Estados Unidos, o destino mais procurado por universitários, existem 724.000 estrangeiros no ensino superior: quase 158.000 são chineses e cerca de 104.000 são indianos, enquanto os brasileiros representam menos de 9.000, de acordo com o Institute of International Education. O Brasil também é pouco atrativo. A Grã-Bretanha, por exemplo, abriga 32.683 estudantes americanos, ante os 3.099 conterrâneos de Barack Obama que estão por aqui. Ficamos atrás de nações como República Checa e até Costa Rica na preferência dos americanos. A despeito dos números tímidos, o Brasil é atrativo para instituições de ponta. A avaliação é de Jaremy Adelman, diretor do conselho para a internancionalização da Universidade Princeton, nos Estados Unidos, e historiador especialista em América Latina. “O Brasil precisa se libertar desse complexo de inferioridade, desse estereótipo de que está sempre na periferia do mundo”, diz. “O fato de não figurar entre os mais bem colocados [nos rankings internacionais] não significa que aqui não existam centros de excelência ou estudantes e profissionais excepcionais.” Adelman esteve no Brasil a convite da Fundação Estudar, que oferece bolsas de estudo a brasileiros no país e no exterior, e conversou com o site de VEJA. Confira a entrevista a seguir.

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Three Princetonians win Davis Projects for Peace

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Two Princeton University students and a recent alumnus are spending the summer in Nicaragua and Brazil pursuing new and creative ideas for promoting peace through grants from the Davis Projects for Peace. The program awarded more than $1 million to students from universities across the country to pursue international endeavors during summer 2012.

Luciana Chamorro, a recent graduate of the Class of 2012 and a native of Nicaragua, received a $10,000 grant to help members of the community of Matagalpa tell their stories of the 1980s civil war through the project “Stories of the Civil War: Empowering a Generation Through Community Filmmaking.” High school and college students, video artists, scholars and the broader population will collaborate in a workshop to produce a video documentary, Chamorro said.

“The personal narratives of the war will collectively provide a view of the recent local history of Matagalpa, with the premise that understanding the past is empowering and gives a community the tools to think about their present and reimagine their future,” Chamorro said. She hopes that such a project will help “recognize in the past the seeds of our current political and social issues, and use this understanding to build a more just and peaceful future for Nicaragua.”

The team of Courtney Crumpler and Sarah Simon, both members of the Class of 2013, were awarded $10,000 to confront issues of health, nutrition and violence by mobilizing an underprivileged community, known as a favela, in Rio de Janeiro to build sustainable rooftop gardens. Their project, “Cultivating Restorative Spaces: Improving Health and Reducing Violence Through Urban Gardens,” aims to bring youth and their families together while learning about food through sustainable gardening.

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