Research Showcase: Brazilian Cultural Thought in Global Perspective

Quilombismo-94 by fluprj/Eduardo Magalhaes

This showcase is a key part of the research project 'Bridging Worlds: Brazilian Cultural Thought in Global Perspective', which explores the ways in which Brazilian Cultural Studies, and Brazilian Cultural History more broadly, inform, influence and shape research being carried out beyond its own narrow boundaries. We are particularly interested in analysing the extent to which Brazilian cultural thought can be harnessed to challenge and reframe dominant cultural narratives and help integrate Global South perspectives into the broader field of cultural studies. With thanks to the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS).

Part One: Lightning Talks

Madeleine Le Bourdon (POLIS), ‘Barriers to a Freirean Conscientization in British Education Systems’

Victoria Adams (SPLAS), ‘Rethinking Placemaking through Brazilian Cultural Policy’

Penny Goodman (Classics), ‘Classics and Brazilian Studies: The Case of Augustus in São Paulo’

Thea Pitman (SPLAS), ‘Digital Humanities and Latin American Studies: The Place of Brazil’

Rebecca Jarman (SPLAS), ‘On Anthropomorphism: Ailton Krenak and the Personhood of Mountains’

Rosie Fox (LAW) and Jean Evans, 'Law’s A Drag: Using Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre to Explore Challenges in Collaborative Research with Drag Artists'

Part Two: Translating the Quilombo, with Archie Davies and Diego de Matos Gondim

Archie Davies is one of the co-editors and translators of The Dialectic Is in the Sea: The Black Radical Thought of Beatriz Nascimento (Princeton, 2023), with Christen Smith and Bethânia Gomes. Beatriz Nascimento (1942–1995) was a poet, historian, artist, and political leader in Brazil’s Black movement, an innovative and creative thinker whose work offers a radical reimagining of gender, space, politics, and spirituality around the Atlantic and across the Black diaspora. The Dialectic Is in the Sea is the first English-language collection of writings by this vitally important figure in the global tradition of Black radical thought. Archie will talk about the collaborative process of translating Nascimento's work, and how thinking with and through the practice of translation enables us to mobilize Black Atlantic thought in new ways.

Diego de Matos Gondim will present ongoing work emerging from Archie and Diego's collaborative British Academy-funded project, Worlding Quilombo. Drawing on ongoing cinematic experiments in five quilombo communities, he will present the quilombo as an emergent figure of ontological disobedience, founded on the inseparability between body and territory, time and memory, life and world. In this frame the quilombo ceases to be a historical leftover and becomes an insurgent presence in contemporary life and space.

Archie Davies is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Queen Mary University of London. He is a cultural and historical geographer and a translator. His research engages with questions of political ecology, embodiment, Latin American social theory, freedom, hunger, food, and metabolism.

Diego de Matos Gondim has dedicated years of research to studying and collaborating with quilombola communities. In 2021 he received a double PhD from University of Paris 8 and the State University of São Paulo in Mathematics and Philosophy. In 2021, he took on the role of lecturer and researcher at the Federal University of Rio Fluminense (UFF), and in 2023, joined the Post-graduate Research Programme in Education at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPGE/UFRJ). He is currently designated ‘Jovem Cientista do Nosso Estado’ funded by the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ process #298329 and #294283). In 2026 he is an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at QMUL.

The showcase is chaired by Stephanie Dennison ([email protected]). Everyone welcome.