UF hosts international conference on 'Emergent Brazil'

January 24, 2013

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida will host an international conference on “Emergent Brazil” Feb. 14-15. The conference is jointly sponsored by the UF Center for Latin America Studies and the Center for the Research and Documentation of Contemporary Brazilian History, part of the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

The conference is intended to explore Brazil’s recent achievements and role in the world. Eight panels with 24 speakers will present and discuss topics ranging from Amazonia and contemporary and international politics to culture, religion, urban studies and environmental policy.

The two keynote speakers are Marshall Eakin of Vanderbilt University, a well-known historian of contemporary Brazil and leader in Brazilian studies in the United States, and Marcelo Neri from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, one of the foremost figures in Brazilian social policy and its study. The conference will conclude with a performance by Ulisses Rocha, world-renowned guitarist and the 2012-2013 Bacardí Family Eminent Scholar at the UF Center for Latin American Studies.

Visit http://www.latam.ufl.edu/News/conference.stm for more information and to register.

Founded in 1930, the UF Center for Latin American Studies advances knowledge about Latin America and the Caribbean and their peoples. With more than 170 affiliated faculty from colleges across the university’s campus, the center is the oldest and one of the largest institutions for interdisciplinary research, teaching and outreach on Latin America, Caribbean and Latino studies. Its affiliated programs include tropical conservation and development, crime, law and governance in the Americas, and Latin American business environment, among others.

The Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary Brazilian History, known as CPDOC, is a major center for undergraduate and graduate teaching and research in the social sciences and contemporary history in Rio de Janeiro. CPDOC is also Brazil’s leading historical research institute, holding a major collection of personal archives, oral histories and audiovisual sources pertaining to Brazilian contemporary history.

Long recognized for its integration of history and the social sciences, CPDOC has in recent years added new strength in applied research, something evident in both its faculty and its curriculum. CPDOC’s graduate program in the social sciences was just awarded first place in the nation among comparable programs by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The center is a part of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a private institution founded in 1944 that compares favorably with Brazil’s foremost universities and has an international reputation, particularly for the study of administration and economics. The foundation is committed to Brazil’s social and economic development, to high standards of public service, to the promotion of responsible and shared government, and to Brazil’s success on the international stage.