Bem-vindos!

The Portuguese and Brazilian Studies section of the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at UIUC is dedicated to the study of the Portuguese language and of Brazilian, Portuguese, and Lusophone African literatures and cultures. The research and teaching interests of the section's faculty explore specific national contexts, but also analyzes the interconnections between the lusophone cultures from interdisciplinary perspectives. Moreover, our work discusses the dialogues between Brazil and Spanish-American countries, and its interactions within the Americas. Our faculty also investigates the cultural production of the Brazilian and Portuguese-speaking communities in the United States. Our areas of expertise include cinema studies, racial, social, and gender relations, immigration, fiction and history, the conceptualization of space, constructions of national identity, modernity and postmodernity, and colonial and postcolonial contexts.

Students at both the graduate and undergraduate level explore questions of cultural identity, difference, contact and representation across a wide range of historical periods. Our students generally also take courses in departments such as History, Anthropology, Music, Caribbean and Latin American Studies, and Comparative Literature, as our department encourages innovative work that crosses disciplinary boundaries.

Doctoral students in Portuguese are also eligible to earn a Certificate in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE)

Why Portuguese?

Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies

Study Abroad-Portuguese Program

 

 

Faculty:

Luciano Tosta, Assistant Professor of Brazilian Literature & Culture

Ericka Beckman, Associate Professor (19th and 20th century Latin American literature and culture; political economy and literature; Marxism; globalization and illegality; narco-trafficking and culture)

Eduardo Ledesma. Assistant Professor (20th and 21st century Latin American (including Brazil) literature and culture; film and new media theory; historic avant-gardes; experimental poetry and narrative; word and image interaction)

Nola Senna, Director of the Undergraduate Portuguese Language Program

Raquel Castro Goebel. Visiting Instructor

 

Affiliated faculty:

Elizabeth Lowe. Professor and Director of Center for Translation Studies

Ryan Shosted, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Linguistics. Phonetics, Phonology, Mayan linguistics. Expertise in Portuguese phonetics and phonology.