Writers from Portugal, Brazil and Cape Verde to speak at UMass Boston conference

BOSTON – The 12th Literature in Portuguese Language Conference will bring together authors with ties to three Lusophone countries on Nov. 17 at UMass Boston.

“We will be celebrating cultures, identities, and diversity in the Portuguese-speaking world by tracing the roots of the Lusophone concept and discourse,” say conference organizers in a prepared statement.

The event is being organized by the Portuguese Language Center Camões/UMass Boston in partnership with the Latin American and Iberian Studies Department at UMass Boston and the Consulates General of Portugal, Brazil, and Cabo Verde in Boston.

This year’s conference aims to highlight key debates from the concepts of the construction of the Inter-arts in Contemporary Portuguese-speaking countries’ Literature.

Patrícia Portela (Portugal), João Nemi (Brazil) and Shauna Barbosa (Cabo Verde) are the writers who have been invited to create a memorable debate on the challenges of the Lusophone world.

“The main focus of the analysis is to reflect on what the authors in these three areas of Lusophone production may think, how they think, and ultimately how they voice their speech at the idea of this theme in the literary canon, either by their juxtaposition or simply by the contact between these writers of the various Portuguese-speaking countries,” according to organizers.

Writers, academic researchers, scholars, teachers, students, and community members are expected to attend the event.

The conference will be held in-person from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at UMass Boston’s Campus Center, located at 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston. It will take place on the third floor in Section A (3550A) of the Ballroom.

Who are the invited writers?

Born in Lisbon in 1974, Patricia Portela is an author, performer and filmmaker who has been considered one of the most daring artists and innovative writers of her generation.

She has been invited to participate in the prestigious International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa in 2013, and was the first literary resident in Berlin in 2016. She is the author of several novels (Banquet was a finalist of the Novel and Novella Big APE Prize 2012) and short stories.

A writer and a poet, João Nemi has a Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages from City University of New York. His research focuses on queer theory, queer pedagogy, Brazilian culture, and visual media.

In his book Cannibalizing Queer: Brazilian Queer Cinema from 1970 to 2015 (Wayne State University Press, 2022), he proposes a conceptual mode of “cannibalism” to study representations of sexual dissidence in Brazilian cinema, arguing that sexual minorities are in fact crucial to the development of a queer tradition in Brazilian filmmaking.

His latest book Os dois piores anos da minha vida (Quase Oito, 2021) is a fictionalized account of his teenage years in Brazil.

Shauna Barbosa, who grew up in Roxbury, Mass., is the author of the poetry collection Cape Verdean Blues (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). She was a finalist for PEN America's 2019 Open Book Award and was a 2018 Disquiet International Luso-American fellow.

Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, AGNI, Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry Society of America, PBS Newshour, Lit Hub, and others.

What’s on the conference’s agenda?

Registration and breakfast will start at 9:30 a.m.

Dr. Nayelli Castro-Ramirez, Chair of the Latin American and Iberian Studies Department at UMass Boston will give the welcoming remarks at 10 a.m.

The Consul General of Portugal Tiago Araújo, Consul General of Brazil Santiago Mourão and Consul General of Cabo Verde Octávio Gomes will then deliver the opening remarks.

This will be followed by a talk with the guest writers moderated by Dr. José Rodrigues, Director of the Portuguese Language Center Camões/UMass Boston, and Dr. Simone Lemos, Director of the Portuguese and Spanish Programs at UMass Boston’s Latin American and Iberian Studies Department.

There will be a special tribute to Dr. Frank de Sousa, Director of the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies at UMass Lowell and Professor of Portuguese. It will be followed by a Q&A session with the invited writers.

The conference will culminate with a lunch and live music with the Brazilian duo Receita de Samba.

Is there a registration fee?

The conference is free and open to the public. All participants will receive a Certificate of Participation.

For more information, send an email to jose.rodrigues@umb.edu or cepe.eua@camoes.mne.pt

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Authors from three Lusophone countries to speak at UMass Boston