Research Group: American Studies (RG 3)
Professional Title: Assistant Professor
Academic Degrees: (1998) Ph.D., English, New York University, New York, NY, U.S.A.. Major fields of concentration: 19th and 20th century American literature; American Realism and Naturalism; Portuguese American literature; postcolonial, cultural, and ethnic studies; (1994) M. Phil., English, New York University, New York, NY, U.S.A.; (1989) M.A., English, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A.; (1985) Licenciatura, Modern Languages and Literatures (English and French studies), University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Institutional Address: CEAUL -Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 Lisboa
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Research Projects:

• Pen Pal in Translation

Research Outputs

Publications in (inter)national peer-reviewed journals:

• (2012). “From Colonial Myopia to Cosmopolitan Clear-sightedness and Back Again: Twain’s Imperial Relapses in Backward, Rural Societies.” The MarkTwain Annual Vol. 10. 1: 91-108.
• (2009-2010). “Pride and Rejection: In Search of Portuguese Roots in Julian Silva’s Fiction.” Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-American Letters and Studies. 30-31: 11-23.
• (2009). “T. S. Eliot and the Prémio Camões: A Brief Honeymoon and Anointment of Portuguese Fascist Politics.” Yeats Eliot Review 26.2: 16-23.
• (2008-2009). “The United States through the Eyes of the Educated Immigrant: The Case of Jorge de Sena.” Portuguese Studies Review 16 (2): 121-134.
• (2008). “From Political Refugee to Object of Sexual Desire: The Role of the ‘Young Portuguese Lady of Rank’ in Hawthorne’s ‘Drowne’s Wooden Image.” Op. Cit.:Uma Revista de Estudos Anglo-Americanos/ A Journal of Anglo-American Studies Vol.10: 127-144.
• (2008). “The Tastes from Portugal: Food as Remembrance in Portuguese American Literature.” Ethnic Studies Review 31.2: 126-52.

Books, chapters in books and other publications:

• (2012). “Madly in Love Outside the Church and the Nunnery: The Portuguese Priest and Nun Revisited in Katherine Vaz’s Fiction.” ExpandingLatinidad: An Inter-American Perspective. Ed. Luz Angélica Kirschner. Trier, Germany and Tempe, Arizona: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier and Bilingual Press at Arizona State University, 71-85.
• (2011). “Her Story vs. His Story: Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States of America.” Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora: Piecing ThingsTogether. Ed. Francisco Cota Fagundes, Irene Maria F. Blayer, Teresa F. A. Alves and Teresa Cid. New York: Peter Lang, 49-62.
• (2010). “De ‘refugo’ a cidadãos de pleno direito: Imagens selectivas de portugueses na literatura norte-americana.”http://www.socgeografialisboa.pt/wp/wp          content/uploads/2010/01.
• (2009). Portuguese American Literature. Turril, Penrith UK: Humanities-Ebooks, LLP. ISBN 978-1-84760-108-7.
• (2008). Representations of the Portuguese in American Literature. North Dartmouth, MA: Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture/University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Supervision 

B.A. thesis:

• (2012). Magdalena Wszolek, “A Universal Study of Female Psyche in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: An Interpretative Escape from Assumptions of Harlem Renaissance and Feminism.” Erasmus student. Co-supervision with Jaroslaw Szurman, University of Silesia. B. A. thesis presented at the University of Silesia, Poland. June 2012.

MA dissertations

• (2013). Maria Isabel de Sousa, “As questões ecológicas em Moby-Dick, de Melville, e Walden, de Thoreau.” M. A. Dissertation in Línguas, Literaturas e Culturas, University of Aveiro. 16 July 2013. Pass: 16/20 points.

Organization of scientific dissemination activities:

• (2013). Member of the Organizing Committee of the “Neither Here Nor There, Yet Both: International Conference on the Luso-American Experience,” Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon/Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, July 11-12, 2013.
• (2013). Inaugural exhibit and talk on American explorers and travellers, sponsored by the American Corner Program/Embassy of the United States of America, at the Library of the University of Aveiro, February 18, 2013.
• (2012). Member of the Organizing Committee of the Commemorative Conference of the 25^th Anniversary of the Portuguese Association for Comparative Literature, University of Aveiro, Portugal, December 5-7, 2012.
• (2012). Coordinator and presenter of Professor James Ragan, who gave a lecture on “Connections between Cinema and Literature” at the Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Aveiro, on October 18, 2012, a talk sponsored by the American Corner Program at the Aveiro University Library in conjunction with the American Embassy in Lisbon.

Other activities

Presentations in international conferences:

• (2013). “Shoving God into the Backseat: The Erosion of the Divine as Loss of Ethnic Identity in Portuguese American Literature,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the American  Comparative Literature Association, Global Positioning Systems, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 4-7.
• (2012). “Donald R. Taft’s Two Portuguese Communities in New England: A Case Study on the Portuguese ‘Plague’ and Discourse on Eugenics in the United States,” presented at the annual conference of the European Association for American Studies, “The Health of the Nation,” Ege University, Izmir, Turkey, 30 March-2 April.
• (2010). “Revisiting Ancestral Roots in Katherine Vaz’s Fiction: Padre Amaro and Mariana,” presented at the Bi-annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies, “Transnational Americas: Difference, Belonging, Identitarian Spaces.” University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, November 11-13.
• (2009). “Madly in Love Outside the Church and the Nunnery: The Portuguese Priest and Nun Revisited in Katherine Vaz’s Fiction,” presented at the 4^th International Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S. A., October 24.
• (2009). “From Colonial Myopia to Cosmopolitan Clear-sightedness: The Influence of Europe in Correcting Mark Twain’s ‘Visual Disorders’,” presented at the Sixth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies, Elmira College, Elmira, NY, August 6-8.
• (2008). “Searching for Anchors of Ethnic Identity in Katherine Vaz’s Fiction,” presented at the Second Biennial Conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Network – Unsettling Women: Contemporary Women’s Writing and Diaspora, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom, July 11-13.
• (2008). “Literature at the Service of Politics: The Immigration Acts of the 1920s and the Demonization of the Portuguese in American Writing,” presented at the Sixth Biennial Conference of The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas (MESEA), Leiden University, the Netherlands, June 25-28.

Presentations in national conferences:

• (2013). “’Playing in the Dark’ with Portuguese Statues in the United States of America: João Rodrigues Cabrilho, Peter Francisco, and Catarina de Bragança,” presented at the “Neither Here Nor There, Yet Both: International Conference on the Luso-American Experience,” Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon/Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, July 11-12.
• (2012). “Portuguese Americans on Screen: Hollywood Gone-a-Changing or the Power and Persistence of Stereotypes?,” presented at the International Congress “Changing Times: Performances and Identities on Screen,” Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Portugal, 7-9 November.
• (2012). “From Obscurity to the Pantheon of Portuguese American Heroes: Recycling Peter Francisco for Ethnic Minority ‘Feel Good’ and Uplift,” presented at the International Conference Recycling Myths, Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Portugal, 2-5 May.
• (2011). “Watch Out for the ‘Black Portygee’!: Paranoia and Fear of Portuguese Commixture in American Literature,” presented at the 32^nd Conference of the Portuguese Association for Anglo-American Studies, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, May 12-14.
• (2011). “From the Top of the Racial Pyramid in Hawaii: Demonizing the Hawaiian Portuguese in Elvira Osorio Roll’s Fiction,” presented at the 2nd International Conference on Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal, April 18-29.
• (2009). “De ‘refugo’ a cidadãos de pleno direito: Imagens selectivas de portugueses na literatura norte-americana,” presented at the round table, A Presença e a Imagem dos Portugueses nos EUA, Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, 22 October.
• (2008). “Pride and Rejection: In Search of Portuguese Roots in Julian Silva’s Fiction,” presented at the «Lusofilias»/Portuguese Studies colloquium, Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Aveiro, November 13-14.
• (2008). “Her Story vs. His Story: Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States of America,” presented at the Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora (1928-2008): International Conference on Storytelling, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, October 23-25.
• (2008). “Mary McCarthy, V. S. Pritchett e Richard Franko Goldman: Os Sucessos e Insucessos da Política de Salazar,” presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the Associação Portuguesa de Estudos Anglo-Americanos, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal, April17-19.

Future Research:

• Book: Representations of the Portuguese in American Literature after the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements in the United States of America (in preparation).
• Translation into Portuguese of six volumes of poetry authored by James Ragan, an American poet/scriptwriter/professor. Collaborative work (with another colleague) to be published by the University of Aveiro Press.

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