Arts

21 Oct 09

Brazil week is bringing some carnival spirit to the University.

Oxford has appointed its first Lecturer in Brazilian Literature and Culture who is bringing some carnival spirit to the University with its first ever Brazil Week.

Dr Claire Williams has organised a week of Brazilian Culture, running from Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October, which includes highlights such as a concert by three highly respected Brazilian musicians. Adriana Calcanhotto, Domenico Lancellotti and Moreno Veloso (son of the iconic singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso) will be performing a public concert at the Jacqueline du Pre Music Building at 8pm on Thursday 29 October.

With Rio de Janeiro winning the bid for the 2016 Olympics, a week celebrating Brazil couldn’t have come at a better time.

‘The idea for Brazil Week arose during a visit to Oxford by the Brazilian Ambassador Carlos Augusto R. Santos-Neves in May, when I met colleagues from across the University whose research was closely associated with Brazil,’ said Dr Williams. ‘When I realised how many Brazilianists there are here, I thought that a Brazilian Cultural Week would be a great way to celebrate the links between Oxford and Brazil, but also to bring the Brazilianists together.’ 

Brazil Week also includes the premiere of a documentary film based on interviews conducted by the cult writer Clarice Lispector with famous Brazilian cultural figures in the 1960s and 70s, directed by her great-niece, Nicole Algranti, who will be present at the screening, along with Lispector's biographer, Teresa Montero.

With Brazil week and in her new role, Dr Williams says she wants to make her students realize that there’s more to Brazil than ‘the tourist images of football, favelas, samba and palm trees’.

She said: 'I want to help them better appreciate the complicated issues of race, class and colonial background that have shaped the country and provoked writers to produce great works of literature. I want them to read books that they will remember for the rest of their lives, because they have changed the way they think about the world. Unfortunately, many fantastic works from the Portuguese-speaking world remain untranslated into English because we are notoriously reluctant to read translations. But by learning Portuguese, my students gain access to all that treasure.’

All the events are open to the general public except the films at St Peter's College, which can be attended by students and members of the University.