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.
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.
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.
The annual Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni (APGA) Teaching Awards are sponsored by graduate alumni and are selected by Dean of the Graduate School William Russel. All will be honored at the APGA’s Tribute to Teaching Reception on Saturday, June 2. Each winner will receive $1,000.
Iwa Nawrocki received her joint bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy from McGill University in 2007 before coming to Princeton to study global and transnational history, with a focus on modern Latin America and Eastern Europe. Nawrocki is being honored for her assistance in teaching “A History of the World Since 1300” under the guidance of Jeremy Adelman, the Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor in Spanish Civilization and Culture and professor of history. In nominating Nawrocki, Adelman noted her ability to engage the wide variety of students enrolled in the expansive course. “Getting students motivated and involved requires energy, devotion and an ability to range widely without being superficial. Iwa has all three,” Adelman wrote. He commented on the exceptionally high course evaluations and compliments Nawrocki received from her students, writing, “Consider the keywords of her students: engaging, comfortable, thoughtful, clarifying, kind, helpful, encouraging. … Exactly the vocabulary one wants to see in one’s teaching assistant, Iwa delivers.” One student, describing her dedication to teaching, wrote that Nawrocki “let me know when my initial work was not up to par, and she showed me what she expected of me in her class. Through her teaching I learned how to write an A-level history paper, and I feel very prepared for any history class to come.” Nawrocki expects to complete her Ph.D. in 2015.
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?
Next fall, five years after President Shirley Tilghman published the fall 2007 report “Princeton in the World,” which delineated measures for expanding the University’s international presence, the University will announce a formal academic partnership with the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, according to history professor and Council for International Teaching and Research Director Jeremy Adelman.
Between 2012 and 2015, Princeton and USP faculty will study “Race and Citizenship in the Americas,” supplemented by a series of major yearly conferences and smaller workshops with faculty and students at the schools, according to the project proposal announced Thursday. The project will facilitate the hosting of graduate schools at the two universities, with the ultimate goal of “strengthen[ing] and broaden[ing] Princeton’s academic and institutional ties with Brazil.”
Ambassador Ricardo Luna is spending the spring semester as a visiting fellow in the Program in Latin American Studies. A career diplomat with over twenty years of experience as Peruvian ambassador, he has served as Peruvian ambassador to the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. Before coming to Princeton, Ambassador Luna has taught at Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and the Fletcher School.
From poetry to politics and everything in between, the Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS) brings together scholars, artists, students and experts to explore the many facets of Latin America.
Since its inception in 1967, PLAS has focused on the culture, history, socioeconomic conditions, politics, and society of the region. With a vibrant cadre of associated faculty and visiting scholars, PLAS offers an intellectual and creative hub for research, teaching and cultural exchange.
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.
Dear friends of PLAS:
I write to share some very sad news. Sarah Hirschman passed away earlier this week. There will be a memorial service this Saturday, 1/21, at 3:30pm at the Institute for Advanced Studies Dining Hall. You can read an article from Town Topics on Sarah listing her many contributions to the Princeton community; an introduction to one of her talks by Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones; and her obituary.
Best,
Rubén
Director, Program in Latin American Studies