On this day, November 3rd, the activities of the Minas Mundo Seminar at Princeton University began, marking the project’s first event held outside Brazil.
Following the welcome session, the “Extraordinary Images and Journeys” segment kicked off the first round of presentations. In-house speakers Pedro Meira Monteiro (Princeton) and Victoria Lopes dos Santos (Princeton), along with Joana Lavôr, the artist responsible for Minas Mundo’s visual identity, participated in the discussion.
The discussion covered topics such as Elizabeth Bishop’s work in translating Minha Vida de Menina, Helena Morley’s diary, writings by Minas Gerais author Conceição Evaristo, and the drawings and posters for the Minas Mundo project. This debate marked the seminar’s beginning and showcased various cosmopolitan productions from Minas Gerais.
The conversation about cosmopolitanism expanded during the “Other Seas” session, featuring presentations by Nicola Cooney (Princeton), Pablo Guarín Robledo (Princeton), Paula Abreu (yhe Director of Special Programming at Princeton), and Rafael Cesar (Princeton). A recurring theme was the transatlantic flow in different studies and activities. The talks focused on Princeton University’s cosmopolitan experiences, such as the Portuguese language teaching program in Portugal and Cabo Verde, and the curation process for the McCarter Theater Center’s cultural agenda. Additionally, discussions touched on cultural memory studies related to the Tarrafal concentration camp in Cabo Verde and the South-South relations between Brazil and Angola, highlighting the role of Brazilian literature during Angola’s struggle for independence.
After visiting the Firestone Library with Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, the third session delved into cosmopolitan shifts from the transatlantic to the transpacific during the “Minas Mundo: Mundo Manila” roundtable. Participants included Christina Lee (Princeton), David Rivera Mosquera (Princeton), Nicholas Michael C. Sy (University of the Philippines Diliman), Yangyou Fang (Princeton), and You Jin Kim (Princeton). Topics ranged from Spanish colonization and cosmopolitanism in Manila, Philippines, between the 16th and 18th centuries, to indigenous forms of slavery, the impacts of Chinese migration, and resistance to Spanish colonial abuse by Chinese and Mestizos.
After a break, the fourth session, titled “Deformations, Queerness, the Body is an Other,” featured works by Lucas van Hombeeck (PPGSA/UFRJ), André Botelho (UFRJ), Catarina Lins (Princeton), and Luisa Geisler (Princeton). The session explored writings by Brazilian authors Silviano Santiago and Ana Cristina Cesar, addressing themes like individual-society relationships in a post-Bildung era, the challenging of gender norms from a queer perspective, and the production of bodies through writing.
To conclude the day’s events, the “Sarau: A Música na Poesia” session took place, featuring poet Angélica Freitas, singer Juliana Perdigão, and moderators Catarina Lins (Princeton) and Eliana Hernández Pachón (Princeton).
Here are some highlights of the day:
This post was contributed by João Mello and photos sent in by the participants.
