Atlantic History and South Atlantic History: an appraisal
presented by Dr. Luiz Felipe de Alencastro
Friday, March 30, 2012
3:30pm-5:00pm
255 Hagerty Hall
1775 College Rd.
Columbus, OH 43210
Studies on Atlantic History generally overlook or ignore the differences and specificity of South Atlantic History: bilateral trade linked Brazilian and Africans ports, mainly in Angola. Merchandises, men, royal servants, missionaries, merchants and soldiers crossed the South Atlantic between 1550 and 1850. Today, Brazil has the more important African descent population outside African and, again, an economic, linguistic and cultural network connect different countries and peoples within the South Atlantic.
Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, Instituto Camões, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Spanish 840, and the Department of History
Documenting Citizenship: Contemporary Efforts Toward Social Inclusion in Brazil
presented by Dr. Wendy Hunter
Friday, February 24, 2012
10:30am-12:00pm
1039 Derby Hall
154 N. Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
People without identity documents go unrecognized by modern states and therefore cannot access the rights, benefits, and services that they provide. Significant numbers of Brazilians still lack the necessary documentation to enjoy citizenship. Yet since the late 1990s a federal campaign has sought to increase the numbers of Brazilians who possess identity documents. This presentation by Dr. Wendy Hunter explores why so many Brazilians have lacked documentation and what explains the federal mobilization underway to address the problem.
Dr. Wendy Hunter, from the University of Texas, Austin, studies Comparative Politics with an emphasis on Latin American affairs. She has done in-depth work on the military in Brazil and the Southern Cone, as well as research on social policy issues in Latin America. She has also done extensive research on left parties in Latin America.
Sponsored by CLAS Lusoglobe Working Group and the Department of Political Science
The First Representations of Brazil on World Maps: A Comparison of the Cantino Chart and Waldseemüller World Map
presented by Dr. Alida Metcalf
Friday, October 7, 2011
3:30pm-5:00pm
255 Hagerty Hall
1775 College Rd.
Columbus, OH 43210
The first representations of Brazil on European maps of the sixteenth century are significant for historical, cartographic, and artistic reasons. Not only does Brazil occupy a unique space on early world maps, but maps projected visual images of Brazil that became defining metaphors over the succeeding centuries. Portrayed as a verdant landscape with lush forests – the ideal sanctuary for beautiful exotic birds, or the source of valuable timber – or as the distant place where strange peoples known to engage in fierce warfare, sleep in hammocks, practice cannibalism lived – the early images associated with the geographic space of Brazil shaped an imagined place of wonder, riches, and horror for those who studied these maps. Initially new, but appearing with such regularity that they became familiar caricatures, a small number of images dominated the depiction of Brazil on sixteenth-century maps. These representations cast such a deep association with Brazil that they are also would shape how those who lived in Brazil would understand themselves and their relationship to a larger world. How did this imagery arise and why? Through a comparison of two very different world maps: the Cantino Chart of 1502 and the Waldseemüller World Map of 1507, Dr. Metcalf will show how the first representations of Brazil emerged from two distinct cartographic and artistic traditions, and she will explore the significance of this for the radically changing consumer of maps in the sixteenth century.