Sophia Beal
[Last updated February 2021]
University of Minnesota Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies 214 Folwell Hall, 9 Pleasant St. SE | Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-2331 sfbeal@umn.edu 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 2004-2005
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
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Associate Professor (with tenure), Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies August 2016 - present
Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies August 2012 - June 2016
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 Books
The Art of Brasília: 2000-2019
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 (published Feb. 1st, 2020). Print and Digital. 252 pages.
2 Reviews of The Art of Brasília:
Sean McPherson, Journal of Lusophone Studies, vol. 5, no. 1 (2020): 261-263. Marguerite Itamar Harrison, Hispania, vol. 103, no. 4 (2020): 621-622. A arte de Brasília: 2000-2019
Translated by Larissa Satico Ribeiro Higa. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Libraries Publishing, 2021. Digital. (Accepted 2 Dec. 2020, Final manuscript submitted 8 Feb. 2021, Forthcoming)
Portuguese translation of The Art of Brasília:2000-2019 Brazil under Construction: Fiction and Public Works
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Print and Digital. 198 pages. Reviews of Brazil under Construction:
Glen S. Goodman, The Latin Americanist 60.3 (2016): 415-416. Larissa Satico Ribeiro Higa, Opiniães 9 (2016): 184-186. David William Foster, ellipsis 13 (2015): 251-253. Vanessa Valdés, Hispania 98.2 (2015): 357-359.
Georg Wink, Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies 3.1 (2014): 521-525. Brasil em construção: as obras públicas na literatura do século XX
Translated by Fal Azevedo. Porto Alegre: Editora Zouk, 2017. Print. 228 pages. Portuguese translation of Brazil under Construction (with a new epilogue) Co-Edited Volumes
Hispanic Issues volume Contemporary Brazilian Cities, Culture, and Resistance (Under review as of Dec. 2020)
Co-edited with Gustavo Prieto
Modern Fiction Studies special issue Infrastructuralism
(61.4 Winter 2015). Print and digital. 155 pages. Co-edited with Bruce Robbins and Michael Rubenstein. Refereed Articles
Brasília’s Cultural Events Take to the Street
Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, vol. 22, 2018, pp. 165-180. (Published 13 June 2019)
Elderly Intimacy in Petra Costa’s Documentary Olhos de Ressaca
Veredas, vol. 26, 2016, pp. 145-154. (Published 23 May 2018)
Espaços movediços e conflitantes na Manaus de Milton Hatoum
Revista Teresa, vol. 17 (a thematic issue on authoritarianism and violence), 2016, pp. 71-86.
3 Romance Notes, vol. 56, no. 2, 2016, pp. 187-198.
Making Space in Brasília: Cultural Texts from 2009 to 2014
ellipsis, vol. 13, 2015, pp. 55-77.
A arte de andar nas ruas de Brasília
Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea, vol. 45, 2015, pp. 65-83. The Art of Brasília: Spaces, Tactics, and Walks in the Capital’s Cultural Texts
Brasil/Brazil: A Journal of Brazilian Literature, vol. 47, 2013, pp. 34-64.
The Substance of Light: Literature and Public Space in Belle Époque Rio de Janeiro (1894-1914) Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 49, no. 2, 2012, pp. 5-27.
A transformação das trevas na literatura pré-modernista
Pensares em Revista, vol. 1, 2012, pp. 76-91.
Inhabiting Identities in Nelson de Oliveira’s Short Story “O irmão brasileiro” Céfiro, vol. 11, no. 2, 2012, pp. 7-13.
Obras públicas monumentais, ficção e o regime militar no Brasil (1964-1985)
Revista Escritos, vol. 4, 2010, pp. 259-280.
The Real and Promised Brasília: An Asymmetrical Symbol in 1960s Brazilian Literature
Hispania, vol. 93, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1-10.
Becoming a Character: An Analysis of Bernardo Carvalho’s Nove Noites
Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 42, no. 2, 2005, pp. 134-149. Invited Articles
Contemporary Urban Brazilian Fiction and Discourses of Power
Brasil/Brazil, vol. 32 (special issue honoring the research of Nelson H. Vieira), no. 60, 2019, pp. 89-108. (Published Jan. 2019)
Accessing Democracy
Docalogue Dec. 2019 (a website dedicated to documentary film)
Two scholars are invited monthly to write critical commentaries on a documentary. Esther Hamburger (Universidade de São Paulo) and I wrote on Petra Costa’s 2019 film Democracia em vertigem.
Book Chapters
A literatura como um espaço contestado e o padê editorial
Literatura brasileira contemporânea: resistências, escritas, leituras
Eds. Anderson Luís Nunes da Mata, Paula Dutra, Graziele Frederico. Araraquara: Letraria, 2020, pp. 158-186.
Autores da própria competição: repente, batalhas de MCs e slams no Distrito Federal Literatura e periferias
4 Eds. Regina Dalcastagnè and Lucía Tennina. Porto Alegre: Editora Zouk, 2019, pp. 117-135.
Traços e a ocupação artística do espaço no Distrito Federal
Literatura e cidades. Eds. Regina Dalcastagnè and Gislene Barral. Porto Alegre: Editora Zouk, 2019, pp. 243-272.
Espaço e Invenção em Brasília: Textos Culturais de 2009 a 2014
Do trauma à trama: o espaço urbano na literatura brasileira contemporânea. Eds. Ricardo Barberena and Regina Dalcastagnè. Porto Alegre: Luminara, 2016: 93-131. [a Portuguese translation of an article 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
Studies in Witchcraft, Magic, War and Peace in Africa: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Ed. Beatrice Nicolini. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. 227-237. Additional Scholarship
Encyclopedia Entries
Brasília and the Literature It Has Inspired
Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies. Ed. Jeremy Tambling. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018: 1-7.
Brasília’s Literature
The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City. Ed. Jeremy Tambling. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016: 395-407.
Introduction
Infrastructuralism: An Introduction (co-written with Michael Rubenstein and Bruce Robbins)
Infrastructuralism. Eds. Sophia Beal, Bruce Robbins, and Michael Rubenstein. Special issue of Modern Fiction Studies. 61.4 (2015): 575-586.
Interview Given
Infraestrutura de dupla-face: entrevista com Sophia Beal. Opiniães 9 (2016). Conducted by
Larissa Satico Ribeiro Higa, Juliana Caldas, and Aline Novais de Almeida. 174-182. Interviews Conducted
A Conversation with Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa
ellipsis 9 (2011): 129-138.
O jogo das reinvenções: uma entrevista com Mia Couto
5 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. 419-429.
Published Book Reviews
Carvalho, Bruno. Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro.
The Hispanic Review 84.1 (2016): 96-99.
Gouveia, Saulo. The Triumph of Brazilian Modernism: The Metanarrative of Emancipation &
Counter-Narratives.
The Luso-Brazilian Review 53.1 (2016): E13-E15.
Euclides da Cunha the Poet. Rev. of Euclides da Cunha: poesia reunida. Eds. Bernucci,
Leopoldo M. and Francisco Foot Hardman. Brújula 10 (2015): 1-6.
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): 212-214.
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): 109-111. RECENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE
University of Minnesota (Fall 2012 – present) Graduate
• Sppt 8920: Introduction to Hispanic and Lusophone Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics (Spring 2020)
• Sppt 8930: Dissertation and Professionalization Workshop (Spring 2020)
• Port 5910 - Topics in Lusophone Cultures and Literatures (Spring 2020, cross-listed with
Port 3800)
• Port 5930: Topics in Brazilian Literature (Contemporary Brazilian Literature) • Port 5530: Brazilian Literary and Cultural Studies
• Port 5520: Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies Undergraduate
• Port 3800: Film Studies in Portuguese (Brazilian Documentary Film) (Spring 2020) • Port 1904: Brazilian Short Stories [A Freshman Seminar]
6 • Port 3502w: Global Portuguese: 1900 - Present [A Multinational Literature Survey] • Port 3003: Portuguese Conversation and Composition
HONORS
University of Minnesota
▪ UMN Faculty Sabbatical, Academic Year 2018-2019
▪ UMN College of Liberal Arts Talle Faculty Research Award, Jan. 1, 2017 to Dec. 31, 2019 ▪ UMN Office of the Vice President for Research’s Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry and Scholarship, January 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016
▪ College of Liberal Arts Single Semester Leave Award for Spring 2015 Semester ▪ Imagine Fund Annual Award, 2020-2021, 2017-2018, 2014-2015, 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
GRANTS
Investigator status: co-investigator (one of five) Name of PI: Regina Dalcastagnè
External Agency: FAP Distrito Federal [Research Foundation of the Federal District of Brazil] Title: Fora do retrato, no meio da história: a Brasília contada pelas periferias [Out of the Picture, into the Story: Brasília as Told by the Peripheries]
Dates: Oct. 2016 to Oct. 2017
Investigator status: co-investigator (one of four) Name of PI: Regina Dalcastagnè
External Agency: FAP Distrito Federal [Research Foundation of the Federal District of Brazil] Title: Narrativas da cidade: Brasília e a experiência urbana na literatura brasileira
contemporânea [Narratives of the City: Brasília and the Urban Experience in Contemporary Brazilian Literature]
Dates: Dec. 2015 to Dec. 2017
PRESENTATIONS, INVITED TALKS & PANEL ORGANIZATION 2021
Kika Sena’s Artful Protest
The Contemporary Brazilian Literature Research Group Symposium, Brown University, Providence, 22-23 April 2021 (Postponed, Invited Talk)
Subjects Who Make a Scene in Contemporary Brazilian Documentaries
7 2020
Performances that Speak for Themselves in Contemporary Brazilian Documentaries
South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Virtual, 13-15 November 2020 (Virtual) American Portuguese Studies Association Virtual Dissertation Roundtable
American Portuguese Studies Association, Virtual, 25 September 2020 (Event moderator and co-organizer with Rex Nielson)
Breaking Rank: Defiance of Social Scripts and Power Differentials
American Portuguese Studies Association (ASPA) Conference, Brigham Young University, Provo, 24-26 September 2020 (Postponed)
Brazilian Culture’s Contested Ground
APSA Conference, Brigham Young University, Provo, 24-26 September 2020 (Postponed, Panel organizer)
Study Abroad Roundtable
APSA Conference, Brigham Young University, Provo, 24-26 September 2020 (Postponed, Roundtable organizer)
Giving Directions to Imaginary Places
Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention, Virtual, 13-16 May 2020
The Production of Citizenship: Social Struggles and Political Subjectivities LASA Annual Convention, Virtual, 13-16 May 2020 (Panel chair) Cultural Resistance in Brasília
Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) Conference, University of Texas, Austin, 26-28 Mar. 2020 (Postponed)
Cidades, cultura e resistências
BRASA Conference, University of Texas, Austin, 26-28 Mar. 2020 (Postponed, Panel organizer)
2019
Black Contemporary Federal District Poets’ Insurgent Books
Da abertura à crise: Contemporary Brazilian Literature and Socio-Political Change, Symposium at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 25-27 Oct. 2019 (Invited talk) Brasília's Verse Competitions as Sites of Resistance: Repente Duels, Freestyle Battles,
and Slam Poetry
Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention, Boston, 24-27 May 2019
2018
Autopublicação e contra-hegemonia
VII Colóquio Internacional sobre Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea: contrabandos literários, resistências epistêmicas, Københavens Universitet, Copenhagen, 17-18 December 2018 (Invited Talk, virtual participation)
Unsettling 21st-Century Literature
APSA Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 18-20 October 2018 (Panel organizer)
8 Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) Conference, PUC, Rio de Janeiro, 25-28 July 2018 (Panel organizer)
2017
Epistemologias alternativas na arte contemporânea do Distrito Federal
VIII Simpósio Internacional sobre Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea: Escritas – Leituras – Resistências, University of Brasília, 3-6 December 2017 (Invited talk)
Espaço e raça em Branco sai, preto fica de Adirley Queirós e em “Eixo” de Meimei Bastos I Congresso Internacional de Literatura e Cinema, University of São Paulo, 17-19 October 2017 (Invited talk)
SERVICE
Associate Editor of Hispanic Issues (since Oct. 2019)
Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Lusophone Studies (since Oct. 2018)
Advisory Board Member of the journal Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea [“Studies in Contemporary Brazilian Literature”] (since June 2015)
International Collaborator of the Grupo de Estudos em Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea [The Contemporary Brazilian Literature Research Group] (since May 2015)
A Brazilian Research Group of the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq), founded in 1997, based at the University of Brasília
Invited member (funding pending) of the working group of the Graduate Program in Literature at the University of Brasília (since February 2020)
A 4-year initiative funded by Capes (a foundation within the Ministry of Education in Brazil focused on university professors and their research) to improve and
internationalize the Graduate Program in Literature Service to Professional Associations
American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA) President (Jan. 2021-Dec. 2022) APSA Vice President (Jan. 2019-Dec. 2020) and 2020 conference co-organizer APSA Executive Committee Member (Jan. 2017-present)
Member of APSA 2018 Conference Organization subcommittee (Nov. 2017 – Oct. 2018) Panel Selection Committee for APSA Conference 2016
