ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT Sophia Beal Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies University of Minnesota University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies Beginning August 2012 Tulane University, New Orleans, LA Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, School of Liberal Arts, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, jointly affiliated with the Program for African & African Diaspora Studies July 2010 July 2012 CONTACT INFORMATION 214 Folwell Hall, 9 Pleasant St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 625-2331 sfbeal@umn.edu EDUCATION Brown University, Providence, RI PhD in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies 2010 MA in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies 2008 Dissertation: Brazil under Construction: Literature, Public Works, and Progress Director: Nelson H. Vieira; readers: James Green and Anani Dzidzienyo Fulbright US Student Scholar, Maputo, Mozambique 2004-2005 Project: Empowered through Invention: Storytelling in the Fiction of Mia Couto Columbia University, Columbia College, New York, NY BA in Comparative Literature and Society 2004, Graduated Summa Cum Laude with departmental honors. Head Marshal of the senior class and Phi Beta Kappa member Thesis: Becoming a Character: An Analysis of Bernardo Carvalho s Nove Noites Director: Ursula Heise BOOK MANUSCRIPT: Brazil under Construction: The Fiction of Public Works Synopsis: Brazil under Construction explores how Brazil invested in ambitious construction throughout the 20 th century, such as the creation of a new capital city, extensive networks of highways, and massive hydroelectric power plants. Beyond their practical purposes, these public works became significant symbols of Brazil s modernity. While actual public works literally connected the nation, it was the government s representations of these projects that sought to inspire in its citizenry a notion of connectedness and progress. Brazilian authors responded to these progress
narratives by portraying public works with praise, satire, scorn, and imagination. Writers successfully used the tools of fiction its mystery, contradiction, wordplay, and fantasy to engage the unprecedented role of infrastructure in shaping perceptions of Brazil s modernization. PUBLICATIONS Peer-Reviewed Articles The Substance of Light: Literature and Public Space in Belle Époque Rio de Janeiro (1894-1914) Luso-Brazilian Review (forthcoming). Obras públicas monumentais, ficção e o regime militar no Brasil (1964-1985) Revista Escritos 4 (2012): (forthcoming). Inhabiting Identities in Nelson de Oliveira s Short Story O irmão brasileiro Céfiro 11.2 (2012): 1-7. The Real and Promised Brasília: An Asymmetrical Symbol in 1960s Brazilian Literature Hispania Journal 93.1 (2010): 1-10. Becoming a Character: An Analysis of Bernardo Carvalho s Nove noites Luso-Brazilian Review 42.2 (2005): 134-149. Book Chapters Child Soldiers and a Civil War Made Murky: Language and Memory in Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa's Os Sobreviventes da Noite Emerging Perspectives on Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa. Ed. Niyi Afolabi. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2010. 297-306. Terra Sonâmbula: Mythmaking and the Naparama in the Work of Mia Couto Studies in Witchcraft, Magic, War and Peace in Africa: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Ed. Beatrice Nicolini. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. 227-237. Articles under Review Elderly Intimacy in the Brazilian Documentary Olhos de Ressaca Hispanic Research Journal O jeito dos corpos idosos Revista Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual Interviews A Conversation with Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa Ellipsis 9 (2011): 129-138. O jogo das reinvenções: uma entrevista com Mia Couto Storm Magazine 22 (2005): 111-114. Page 2
Uma entrevista com Bernardo Carvalho Brasil/Brazil: A Journal of Brazilian Literature 32 (2004): 97-102. Published Translations Excerpts from Os Sobreviventes da Noite and a forward entitled Translating in Context: Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa s Os Sobreviventes da Noite in Emerging Perspectives on Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa, Ed. Niyi Afolabi. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2010. 419-429. Published Book Reviews Uma cidade em camadas: ensaios sobre o romance Eles eram muitos cavalos de Luiz Ruffato Ed. Marguerite Itamar Harrison. The Luso-Brazilian Review 45 (2008): 212-214. Bruce Dean Willis s Aesthetics of Equilibrium: The Vanguard Poetics of Vicente Huidobro and Mário de Andrade Brasil/Brazil: A Journal of Brazilian Literature 35 (2007): 109-111. TEACHING EXPERIENCE University of Minnesota (Assistant Professor, Fall 2012-present) Undergraduate PORT 1904: Brazil: Short Stories from the Country of the Future PORT 3501: Global Portuguese I [An Afro-Luso-Brazilian Literature Survey] PORT 3502: Global Portuguese II PORT 3003: Portuguese Conversation and Composition Tulane University (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2010-2012) Undergraduate PORT3130: Introduction to Brazilian Literature Graduate PORT6910: Lusophone-African Literature and Film PORT6920: The City and the Street in Brazilian Fiction Brown University (Instructor, 2006-2009) Undergraduate and Graduate POBS 110: Elementary Portuguese POBS 111: Intensive Portuguese POBS 400: Writing and Speaking Portuguese POBS 610: Mapping Portuguese-Speaking Cultures: Brazil POBS 1080: Performing Brazil Medical Portuguese (at Brown Medical School) Page 3
GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS Tulane University: The School of Liberal Arts Center for Scholars Grant for Visiting Scholars, 2011 Brown University: Office of International Affairs Graduate Colloquia Grant, 2009-2010 Cogut Center for the Humanities Graduate Fellowship, 2009-2010 Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies Belda Family Research Fellowship, 2009 Creative Arts Council Student Grant, 2009 Joukowsky Presidential Fellowship, funding 1 st and 5 th years and 3 summers of graduate study From 2005-2009, I received 10 travel grants (for conference participation and research) from the following sources: -The Latin American Studies Association Graduate Student Travel Grant -Brown s Office of International Affairs Graduate Student International Travel Fund -Brown s Center for Language Studies Travel Fund -Brown s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Graduate Student Travel Grant -Brown s Graduate School Travel Research Grant and Conference Travel Grants CONFERENCE PAPERS AND INVITED LECTURES 2013 Brasília: Literally Central, Literarily Marginal Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Boston, MA Jan. 2013 2011-2012 The Meanings of Mano and the Mission of Language Departments American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA) Congress, U. of Iowa, Oct. 2012. I Dreamed the City Stopped: Luiz Ruffato s São Paulo Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA), U. of Illinois, Sept. 2012. Lisbon Stinks: A Reading of José Saramago s O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis MLA Annual Convention, Seattle, WA Jan. 2012. Aging Skin: Reflections on Petra Costa s Film Olhos de Ressaca Mulheres da Retomada: Conference on Brazilian Female Filmmakers, Tulane U., Feb. 2011. Themes and Aesthetics in the Work of Bernardo Carvalho MLA Annual Convention, Los Angeles, CA Jan. 2011. Special session organizer and respondent 2009-2010 Feeling Connected: Nelson de Oliveira s O irmão brasileiro APSA Congress, Brown U., Oct. 2010. Page 4
Light and Literature in Brazil Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Graduate Student Forum Series, Brown U., Feb. 2010. Performing Politics in Dias Gomes s O Túnel MLA Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 2009. Introducing Brazilian Literature: Survey Courses as Literary History MLA Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 2009. Infrastructural Literacy: A Position Paper for the Infrastructuralism Seminar Modernist Studies Association, Montreal, QC, Nov. 2009. Some Thoughts on Vulnerability in the Fiction of Bernardo Carvalho Guest speaker in a mini-symposium with Writer-in-Residence Bernardo Carvalho, U. of Wisconsin, Madison, Oct. 2009. Rudyard Kipling s Electric Paradise LASA Annual Convention, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2009. 2007-2008 Child Soldiers and (Re)membering: Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa s Os Sobreviventes da Noite MLA Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA, Dec. 2008. Electric Streetcars in the Work of Oswald de Andrade and Machado de Assis APSA Congress, Yale U., Nov. 2008. Drummond in Portuguese 101 Congress of BRASA, Tulane U., Mar. 2008. Electric Rio: Access to the Power Grid in Brazilian Literature MLA Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, Dec. 2007. Power and Bridges: Personalizing Infrastructure in a Domingos Pellegrini Story Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Graduate Student Conference, Brown U., Apr. 2007. 2005-2006 A tradição oral na obra de Mia Couto MLA Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 2006. Reconstructing Mozambique with Stories in Mia Couto s Novel Terra Sonâmbula African Studies Association (ASA) Annual Convention, San Francisco, Nov. 2006. Delicate Exploit: Sexual Safety in Sérgio Sant Anna s Novel Um Crime Delicado Congress of BRASA, Vanderbilt U., Oct. 2006. Storytelling and Disempowerment in Stories by Mia Couto and Luís Bernardo Honwana III International Conference on Transatlantic Studies, Brown U., Apr. 2006. Stereotypes in Paulina Chiziane s Niketche MLA Annual Convention, Washington DC, Dec. 2005. Abandonment: Invented Domestic Violence in the Fiction of Mia Couto ASA Annual Convention, Washington DC, Nov. 2005. Page 5