Paulo Fontes, 2006-07 PLAS visiting fellow, wins the Thomas E. Skidmore Prize

Posted on by
1

Paulo Fontes, the author of Um nordeste em São Paulo: trabalhadores migrantes em São Miguel Paulista (1945-66), (Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2009) is the winner of the first Thomas E. Skidmore Prize, sponsored by the National Archive, Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian Studies Association. The $5,000 prize is to support the translation of the book so that it can be published in English. The prize, endowed through a generous donation of the Skidmore family, recognizes historical works on twentieth-century Brazilian history. The first prize competition considered books covering the period 1930-64 that had been published in Portuguese between 2004 and 2010.

Three additional works received Honorable Mention: Regina Horta Duarte, A biologia militante: o Museu Nacional, especialização científica, divulgação do conhecimento e práticas políticas no Brasil – 1926-1945 (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2010); Jorge Ferreira, O imaginário trabalhista: getulismo, PTB e cultura política popular 1945-1964 (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2005); and Antonio Luigi Negro, Linhas de montagem: industrialismo nacional-desenvolvimentista e a sindicalização dos trabalhadores (São Paulo: Boitempo, 2004).

The Prize Committee was composed of James N. Green, (Chair), Ângela Maria Casto Gomes, Luís Edmundo de Souza Moraes, Maria Helena Capelato, and Vitor Manoel Marques da Fonseca. The next Skidmore Prize will be awarded in 2013 and will consider works published in Portuguese between 2006 and 2012 covering the period 1964-85.

PLAS concentrator David Peña ’12 balances academic and athletic life

Posted on by
Reply
Photos of David Peno

Left: David Peña (right) dur­ing an intern­ship at the Mex­i­can embassy in Madrid, along­side Ernesto Sosa Gal­le­gos (left), a coun­selor in the polit­i­cal affairs divi­sion. Right: Squash player David Peña. (Photo at left cour­tesy of David Peña; photo at right by Bev­erly Schaefer)

For the nearly 1,000 students, or about 20 percent of the University’s undergraduates, who suit up for Princeton’s 38 varsity sports teams, life as a student-athlete poses both opportunities and challenges.

Varsity athletes have the chance to travel around the United States and even in other countries for competition, while creating deep bonds with their teammates, honing their talents and learning values such as leadership and fair play. Student-athletes, such as David Peña featured below, balance their rigorous athletic commitment with coursework and other extracurricular activities during their college years.

David Peña, class of 2012

Hometown: Mexico City

Sport: Men’s squash

Academic focus: Politics major; pursuing a certificate in Latin American studies

Other activities: Princeton Junior Squash program; dormitory assistant; working in the Princeton University Library

Favorite Princeton sports moment: “Easy. Feb. 22, 2009, a 5-4 heartbreaking loss against Trinity College during the National Team Championship Finals held at Princeton. The atmosphere of playing for the championship, the support displayed by the school and the intensity of the six-hour-long game was indescribable; hard to believe unless you were present. Despite the loss, I am confident the best is yet to come.”

On balancing squash and other activities: “Like most athletes at the college level, I have practiced a sport since I was a child. I think one gets used to the rush and pressure of combining athletics with academics, family, social life and personal projects. Although it is challenging, having an organized schedule is key to balance all the activities. In addition, professors, coaches and peers have been willing to provide advice and help me along the way.”

Biggest achievement at Princeton outside of squash: “Last year, with support of the Office of International Programs, I had the opportunity to work at the Mexican embassy to Spain, in the political affairs division. I very much enjoyed the experience, and it made me consider perhaps a career path in diplomacy working for the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.”

Excerpted from this article published on the main Princeton University website

O Globo interviews Princeton faculty about the growing international interest in Brazilian literature and culture

Posted on by
1

In an interview Pedro Meira Monteiro (Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures) talks about the growing interest in Brazilian studies at Princeton and mentions Lilia Schwarcz (PLAS Visiting Professor in 2010 and current Global Scholar in History), and Silviano Santiago (Visiting Lecturer of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures).

Read the full article (Portugues)

Read the full article(English)

 

Ricardo Emilio Piglia transfers to Emeritus Status

Posted on by
Reply

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 →

White House appoints Marta Tienda to advisory commission

Posted on by
1

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

Juan José Saer manuscripts, 1958-2004 at Princeton University Library

Posted on by
Reply

juan-jose-saer.jpg

The Manuscripts Division has recently added the manuscripts of Argentinean writer Juan José Saer to its premier collection of archives, manuscripts, and correspondence by Latin American writers and intellectuals. The collection contains numerous notebooks, notes, and drafts of Saer’s novels, essays, short stories, poems, and interviews. Several items in the collection are unpublished. Also included are background materials for Saer’s posthumous novel, La Grande, and some photographs. A detailed finding aid is already available.

Juan José Saer, the son of Syrian immigrants to Argentina, was born in Serodino, a town in the province of Santa Fé, on June 28, 1937. He studied law and philosophy at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Santa Fé, and taught film history and criticism at the same institution. He moved to Paris in 1968, where he taught literature at the University of Rennes, and lived in that city until his death in 2005. Although Saer spent most of his literary life outside Argentina, much of his fiction was set on the area of northern Argentina known as el Litoral. Among his literary works are the novels Cicatrices (1968), El limonero real (1974), Nadie, nada, nunca (1980), El entenado (1983), La ocasión (1988), La pesquisa (1994), and the book of poems El arte de narrar (1977). Saer is considered by some critics to be the most important Argentinean writer of the post-Borges generation.

Photo caption: Photograph of Juan José Saer [Juan José Saer manuscripts, Box 13, Folder 9].

Digital Latin American posters collection grows

Posted on by
Reply

resolver.jpg

The posters included in this new digital project were created by a wide variety of social activists, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, political parties, and other types of organizations across Latin America, in order to publicize their views, positions, agendas, policies, events, and services. Even though posters produced in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela are the most abundant among the more than two thousand currently available in the site, almost every country in the region is represented. In terms of topics, some of the best represented are human rights, elections, gender issues, indigenous issues, labor, ecology and environmental issues, development, public health, and education.

The Latin American Posters Collection is a component of the larger collection of Latin American ephemera that Princeton University Library has developed since the 1970s.

View the Latin American Posters Collection at Princeton University Library

Image caption: Diga basta! Vamos a cambiar la historia! Movimiento Asambleas del Pueblo. Partido de las Asambleas, Argentina

Professor Bruno Carvalho quoted in The New York Times (article on Maracanã stadium)

Posted on by
Reply

“Brazil’s Soul, in Form of a Stadium”

RIO DE JANEIRO — Generations of Brazilians have grown up in the Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho, known around the world as the Maracanã. Built for the 1950 World Cup and at the time the largest stadium in the world, it became an instant national landmark, a symbol of Brazil’s soccer-centric culture.

Read the full article in the New York Times