Sophia Beal
[Last updated June 2015]
University of Minnesota Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies
214 Folwell Hall, 9 Pleasant St. SE | Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-2331 [email protected]
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
Advisor: Nelson H. Vieira; readers: James Green and Anani Dzidzienyo
Fulbright US Student Scholar, Maputo, Mozambique 2004-05
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
Advisor: Ursula Heise
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies
August 2012 – Present
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Affiliate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
January 2015 – May 2015
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
PUBLICATIONS
Single-Author Book
Brazil under Construction: Fiction and Public Works
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Print. 198 pages.
Synopsis: Brazil under Construction explores how Brazil invested in ambitious
construction throughout the 20th century, such as the creation of a new capital city,
extensive networks of highways, and massive hydroelectric power plants. Beyond their
Sophia Beal – CV
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. However, Brazilian fiction exposes the tensions between
infrastructure built for the common good and the underbelly of public works:
displacement, environmental devastation, uneven access, exploitation, and blight. This
book examines how writers successfully use fiction - with its mystery, contradiction,
wordplay, and fantasy - to engage the unprecedented role of public works in shaping
perceptions of Brazil's modernization.
Co-Editor of the Special Edition Infrastructuralism for the journal Modern Fiction Studies
Guest-edited with Bruce Robbins and Michael Rubenstein. Forthcoming Winter 2015.
Topic: The term infrastructuralism is a provocation to think about the relationship between
material culture and literary form in new ways. It is an opportunity to think about how fiction
approaches and relates to social and political questions of public goods, economic
development, and government. Who should own energy resources and their distributive
networks? Roads? Schools? Hospitals? What kinds of infrastructural development are
desirable, and possible, in the 21st century, given the scientific certainty of human-made
climate change and our planetary transition into what scientist Paul J. Crutzen calls the
Anthropocene Era? The forms and themes of fiction reflect such historical shifts, meditate on
them, and mutate in response to them.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“A arte de andar nas ruas de Brasília”
Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea 45 (2015): 65–83.
“Making Space in Brasília: Cultural Texts from 2009 to 2014”
ellipsis 13 (2015) (forthcoming, accepted November 2014)
“The Art of Brasília: Spaces, Tactics, and Walks in the Capital’s Cultural Texts”
Brasil/Brazil 47 (2013): 34–64.
“The Substance of Light: Literature and Public Space in Belle Époque Rio de Janeiro (18941914)”
Luso-Brazilian Review 49.2 (2012): 5–27.
“A transformação das trevas na literatura pré-modernista”
Pensares em Revista 1 (2012): 76–91.
“Inhabiting Identities in Nelson de Oliveira’s Short Story “O irmão brasileiro”
Céfiro 11.2 (2012): 7–13.
“Obras públicas monumentais, ficção e o regime militar no Brasil (1964-1985)”
Revista Escritos 4 (2010): 259–80.
“The Real and Promised Brasília: An Asymmetrical Symbol in 1960s Brazilian Literature”
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Hispania Journal 93.1 (2010): 1–10.
“Becoming a Character: An Analysis of Bernardo Carvalho’s Nove noites”
Luso-Brazilian Review 42.2 (2005): 134–49.
Introduction and Book Chapters (Not Peer-Reviewed)
“Introduction.”
Infrastructuralism. Ed. Sophia Beal, Bruce Robbins, and Michael Rubenstein. Spec. issue
of Modern Fiction Studies. Winter 2015. (forthcoming)
“Espaço e Invenção em Brasília: Textos Culturais de 2009 a 2014”
Collection of Articles on Contemporary Brazilian Literature and Urbanism, edited by
Regina Dalcastagnè. (forthcoming, accepted March 2015)
[This is a Portuguese translation of an article I published in Ellipsis in 2015.]
“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”
Interviews
“A Conversation with Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa”
ellipsis 9 (2011): 129–38.
“O jogo das reinvenções: uma entrevista com Mia Couto”
Storm Magazine 22 (2005): 111–14.
“Uma entrevista com Bernardo Carvalho”
Brasil/Brazil: A Journal of Brazilian Literature 32 (2004): 97–102.
Published Translation
Excerpts from Os Sobreviventes da Noite and a forward titled “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. 419–29.
Published Book Reviews
Carvalho, Bruno. Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro.
The Hispanic Review (forthcoming – submitted May 2014).
Gouveia, Saulo. The Triumph of Brazilian Modernism: The Metanarrative of Emancipation &
Counter-Narratives.
The Luso-Brazilian Review (forthcoming – submitted March 2014).
“Euclides da Cunha the Poet” Rev. of Euclides da Cunha: poesia reunida. Eds. Bernucci,
Leopoldo M. and Francisco Foot Hardman.
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Brújula 10 (2015): n. pag.
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): 212–14.
Willis, Bruce Dean. Aesthetics of Equilibrium: The Vanguard Poetics of Vicente Huidobro and
Mário de Andrade.
Brasil/Brazil: A Journal of Brazilian Literature 35 (2007): 109–11.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
University of Minnesota (Assistant Professor, Fall 2012 – present)
Graduate
 Port 5930 Topics in Brazilian Literature: Contemporary Brazilian Fiction
 Port5530: Brazilian Literary and Cultural Studies
 Port5520: Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies
Undergraduate
 Port1904: Brazilian Short Stories [A Freshman Seminar]
 Port3501w: Global Portuguese: 1300 – 1900 [A Multinational Literature Survey]
 Port3502w: Global Portuguese: 1900 – Present [A Multinational Literature Survey]
 Port3003: Portuguese Conversation and Composition
Tulane University (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2010 – 2012)
Graduate
 Port6910: Lusophone-African Literature and Film
 Port6920: The City and the Street in Brazilian Fiction
Undergraduate
 Port3130: Introduction to Brazilian Literature
Brown University (Instructor, 2006 – 2009)
 Pobs110: Elementary Portuguese
 Pobs111: Intensive Portuguese
 Pobs400: Writing and Speaking Portuguese
 Pobs610: Mapping Portuguese-Speaking Cultures: Brazil
 Pobs1080: Performing Brazil
 Medical Portuguese (at Brown Medical School)
HONORS
University of Minnesota
▪ UMN Office of the Vice President for Research’s Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry
and Scholarship, January 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015
▪ College of Liberal Arts Single Semester Leave Award for Spring 2015 Semester
▪ Imagine Fund Annual Award, 2014-2015
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▪ Imagine Fund Annual Award, 2013-2014
Tulane University:
▪ Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, School of Liberal Arts, 2010-12
▪ The School of Liberal Arts Center for Scholars Grant for Visiting Scholars, 2011
Brown University:
▪ Office of International Affairs Graduate Colloquia Grant, 2009-10
▪ Cogut Center for the Humanities Graduate Fellowship, 2009-10
▪ Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies Belda Family Research Fellowship,
2009
▪ Creative Arts Council Student Grant, 2009
▪ Joukowsky Presidential Fellowship, funding 1st and 5th years and 3 summers of graduate
study
▪ From 2005-09, I received 10 travel grants (for conference participation and research)
PRESENTATIONS & INVITED TALKS
2015
Floating Cities in the Fiction of Milton Hatoum
Department of Spanish and Portuguese Colloquium, U. of Illinois, March 2016
[Scheduled].
Facing the City: Brazilian Urban Fiction (1990 to Present)
Brazil Studies Series at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies,
Harvard U., Apr. 2015.
“Nenhum lugar é um lugar qualquer”: Manaus in Milton Hatoum’s Cinzas do Norte
Brown U., Mar. 2015.
2014
Espaços personalizados na literatura de Brasília
VI Simpósio Internacional sobre Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea: lugares e disputas,
University of Brasília, Nov. 2014
Brazilian Escape Artists
American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA) Congress, U. of New Mexico, Oct.
2014
A arte de andar nas ruas de Brasília
III Colóquio Internacional sobre Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea: percursos,
cruzamentos e interseções, Georgetown U., Apr. 2014.
2013
Uma pesquisa em andamento: Brasília em prosa e música
Colóquio Crítica, Antagonismo e Catástrofe, U. of São Paulo, June 2013.
Brasília: Literally Central, Literarily Marginal
Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Boston, MA Jan. 2013.
2011 AND 2012
The Discourse and Discord of Legacy in the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics
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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 AND 2010
Feeling Connected: Nelson de Oliveira’s “O irmão brasileiro”
APSA Congress, Brown U., Oct. 2010.
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 AND 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 AND 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
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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.
SERVICE
International Collaborator (since May 2015)
Grupo de Estudos em Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea
[The Contemporary Brazilian Literature Research Group]
A Brazilian Research Group of the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific
Development (CNPq), founded in 1997, based at the University of Brasília
Advisory Board Member
The literary journal Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea
University of Minnesota Committees
College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Committee on Second Language Education
Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies Graduate Studies Committee
CLA Proficiency Assessment for Curricular Enhancement Advisory Board
CLA Spanish Certificate Working Group
CLA Language Across the Curriculum Committee
Journals for which I peer review articles
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
Brasiliana
ellipsis
Hispania
Modern Fiction Studies
Co-advisor of the Following PhD Committee
Satty Flaherty-Echeverria
Articulating Black Thought: Discourses on the Margins
In Progress, 21 November 2014 – Oral Defense of Prospectus
PhD in Lusophone Literatures and Cultures
Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
Member of the Following PhD Preliminary Exam Committee
Amy Cosimini
4 May 2015 – Preliminary Oral Exam
Hispanic Literatures and Cultures
Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
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Satty Flaherty-Echeverria
7 March 2014 – Oral Master’s Exam
Masters in Lusophone Literatures and Cultures
Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
Member of the Following Master’s Committees
Ana Cláudia dos Santos São Bernardo
6 May 2015 – Oral Master’s Exam
Masters in Lusophone Literatures and Cultures
Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
Sandra Rellier
30 April 2015 – Oral Master’s Exam
Masters in Lusophone Literatures and Cultures
Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
Charles Dall’Agnol
Lendo a literatura brasileira contemporânea pulp: os casos de Ryoki Inoue e da
ficção de polpa
6 January 2015 – Oral Defense of Master’s Thesis
Mestrado em Teoria da Literatura
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Faculdade de Letras da
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
Xiaoxi Zhang
13 November 2014 – Oral Master’s Exam
Masters in Lusophone Literatures and Cultures
Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
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