Lectures/Podcast
The Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies hosts virtual events featuring Brazilian and Brazilianist scholars as well as community leaders based in Brazil. In Fall 2022 we launched The Making of Modern Brazil Podcast, a podcast featuring the scholars who participated in the NEH Summer Institute hosted on the San Diego State University campus. Our virtual lectures, podcast, and videos from our long-distance collaborations are archived on the Digital Brazil Project.
Featured Lecture
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami at the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies
In Fall 2022, the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies in collaboration with the Instituto Socioambiental, the Hutukara Associação Yanomami, the Environmental Defense Fund, and American Indian Studies at SDSU welcomed Davi Kopenawa Yanomami for a virtual lecture. Davi Kopenawa Yanomami is a shaman and spokesperson for the Yanomami people, one of the largest relatively isolated tribes living in the Amazon forest on the border of Brazil and Venezuela. Davi is today a global ambassador for his people and one of the most eloquent and powerful voices speaking out against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and its peoples. For over 25 years, he has tirelessly led the national and international campaign to secure Yanomami land rights for which he gained recognition around the world and in Brazil. The contiguous Yanomami territories in Brazil and Venezuela are the largest area of tropical rainforest managed by an Indigenous people in the world.
Podcast
Making of Modern Brazil Podcast
Welcome to the Making of Modern Brazil Podcast, a project of the NEH Summer Institute, Making of Modern Brazil hosted by the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University in Summer 2022. Our podcast talks to the faculty and graduate students who participated in the Institute about their research projects.
PRAXIS 10+
In partnership with the research group, PRAXIS-EA and the Institute of Transdisciplinary Advanced Studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies co-sponsored the PRAXIS 10+ Seminar, which took place in April and May of 2022. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the project, US-Brazil Integrating Engineering and Social Science Research to Expand Perspectives on Water and Sustainability.
Environmental Justice in Brazil
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in Brazil: Transcultural Dialogues for Environmental Justice
The lecture series coordinated by Dr. Bruno Tarin and co-organized by Dr. Laila Sandroni, in collaboration with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, aims to establish a US-Brazil platform for collaborative learning by integrating academic knowledge, public policy, and the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. The series prioritizes diversity awareness and self-reflexivity over the professional monopoly of knowledge centered solely within universities. By adopting a transdisciplinary approach, it fosters transcultural spaces where diverse perspectives intersect, enriching environmental discourse through insights from Brazilian grassroots movements. Grounded in the principle that environmental justice movements serve as “living labs” for addressing climate change and biodiversity crises, the series seeks to inspire innovative pathways for research and policy development.
