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.

Continue Reading

Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s Roots of Brazil is one of the iconic books on Brazilian history, society, and culture. Originally published in 1936, it appears here for the first time in an English language translation with a foreword, “Why Read Roots of Brazil Today?” by Pedro Meira Monteiro, one of the world’s leading experts on Buarque de Holanda.

Continue reading the article

As an undergraduate, I had a Classics professor who sometimes spoke of the humanities’ task as the search for the strange in the familiar, and the familiar in the strange. The idea stuck with me, and in my own classes I have attempted to create an environment in which students re-evaluate their preconceived notions, and simultaneously establish connections to what may seem remote or exotic. Since most of my courses revolve around the cultural histories of cities, normally this is a rather safe exercise. How might a 19th-century urban dweller find our sartorial habits unusual? How might we draw parallels between Brasília’s development and that of more traditional capitals?

Continue reading the article

In discussing the differences in how various cultures deal with race, Telles often uses the United States as a point of reference for his students. In using a range of contexts, Telles is able to broaden the conversation about racial identity and race relations. Photo by John Jameson.

By spanning the social sciences and the Americas in his research, Professor Edward Telles has helped increase understanding of how race and inequality interact.

Telles, a professor of sociology and a PLAS associated faculty member, studies immigration, race relations and social demography, focusing on race and inequality across Latin America and on Mexican Americans’ assimilation in the United States. Before coming to Princeton, he worked on these issues for nearly 20 years at the University of California-Los Angeles and in the field in Latin America, primarily in Brazil.

Continue reading the article

The following was published in the 2011 Princeton University Emeritus Booklet.

It is very difficult to imagine Latin American literature at Princeton without Ricardo Piglia.  He is not only an admired novelist but also an inspiring teacher and the author of brilliant essays on major Argentine writers and on the art of fiction.  Piglia has been associated with Princeton for almost 25 years since his appointment as a fellow in the Council of the Humanities in 1987. During the 1990s he taught at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and returned to Princeton on several occasion as a visiting professor.  He also taught at Harvard University and at the University of California-Davis.  In 2001 he accepted a position in the newly created Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton and since then has been the Walter S. Carpenter Professor of Language, Literature, and Civilization of Spain.

Continue reading →

President Barack Obama has appointed Marta Tienda, Princeton’s Maurice P. During Professor in Demographic Studies, a professor of sociology and public affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and PLAS associated faculty member to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Tienda was sworn in on May 26. The commission is tasked with advising Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on how to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for Hispanics.

Read the full article

Por su novela Blanco Nocturno, se quedó con la XVII edición del premio, el más prestigioso de América latina. El ganador se conoció hoy, en Caracas, y entre los finalistas hubo seis argentinos.

Read the full article