Carson Teuscher is a 2020-2021 FLAS fellow studying Portuguese.

"My dissertation explores Allied coalition warfare during the Italian Campaign of World War II. Improving my Portuguese will enable me to analyze one of the least remembered aspects of this subject:The politico-military alliance forged between the United States and Brazil from 1941 to 945. With American aid, guidance, and support, Brazil became the only Latin American nation to commit soldiers into combat alongside Allied forces in Europe during World War II. From 1944 to 1945, some 25,000 members of Brazil’s Força Expedicionária Brasileira fought in Italy as part of the American Fifth Army. Using Portuguese-language archival sources, I will detail how this unlikely partnership developed and what role it played in Italy. Ultimately, incorporating Brazilian voices into my account of the multinational Allied coalition in Italy will help to globalize a narrative that has heretofore privileged Anglo-American and other Western perspectives.

After finishing my Ph.D. I hope to either pursue a career as a professor of history, become part of a supranational organization, work at a think tank, or somewhere in the federal government."