Brazil Unfiltered

From the corruption scandal known as ‘Operation Car Wash’ to Bolsonaro’s clashes with the Supreme Court, today Brazil’s judiciary is at the center of the nation’s political and social struggles. On this episode, James Green talks with someone uniquely qualified on the subject: former Attorney General Luís Inácio Adams. In addition to the process and politics of ‘Operation Car Wash’ and Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, Luís and James look at how the courts stand as a check against some of President Bolsonaro’s most conservative tendencies, and how the country’s political landscape could change in the coming years.To see Luís Inácio Adam's lecture during his visit to the Watson institute, follow this link: [https://watson.brown.edu/brazil/events/2019/luis-cio-adams-challenges-brazilian-constitution-our-democracy-jeopardy]

Leila Lehnen is the Chair of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University. Her work uses literature to explore Brazilian society, culture, and history. As she she sees it, literature doesn’t just reflect a country's culture and politics -- it shapes it, too. On this episode of Brazil Unfiltered, Jim and Leila discuss what her work has taught her about contemporary Brazil, and how literature can help us expand our imagination of the politically possible. They also discuss politics in Brazil today, and the changing attitudes towards President Bolsonaro. To learn more about Leila Lehnen's book 'Citizenship and Crisis in Contmeporary Brazil', follow this link: [https://www.amazon.com/Citizenship-Crisis-Contemporary-Brazilian-Literature/dp/1349447218/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=]

On this episode of Brazil Unfiltered, James Green talks with Vera Paiva, a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Sao Paulo. Vera is an expert on the ways societies deal with collective trauma, and how it affects everything from politics to public health. Her interest in the work is also personal; her father was a politician and activist who abducted, killed, and disappeared by the military when Vera was 16. James and Vera talk about her upbringing, her work combating the spread of AIDS and HIV, and how to get out from under the shadow of a military dictatorship.

Some of the strongest opposition to Jair Bolsonaro has come from students and educators in Brazil, so it’s no surprise that Bolsonaro has framed Brazil’s education system as a threat to the country. For this last episode of the first season of Brazil Unfiltered, James Green talks with Sidney Chalhoub, Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and a former professor at the State University of Campinas in Brazil. They discuss how Brazil’s education system operates, and how it’s suffered in the last few years. They also explore how Brazil’s universities might fight back against the administration’s attacks -- and what’s at stake if they don’t.

On this episode: a deep dive into Brazil’s national and electoral politics. To do that, Jim Green talked with George Avelino, a Professor of Political Science at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, and director of the Center for Politics and Economics in the Public Sector.

Leah VanWey is a sociologist and expert on the effects of deforestation in Brazil [https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/people/leah-vanwey]. On this episode she and Jim Green explore the history, politics, and science of Brazil’s forests. Because how they're managed will affect not just Brazil's economy and environment, but the world's.

Debora Diniz is an anthropologist, activist, and former University of Brasilia law professor. Her life was utterly transformed last year, when she helped bring a case to Brazil’s Supreme Court to decriminalize abortion. Death threats were made against her. She received police protection, and went into hiding prior to the case’s final hearings. Today she’s living in exile in the US. On this episode Debora and James talk about life in exile, how to combine scholarship with activism, and how to navigate the 'local flavors' of authoritarianism we're seeing around the world today.

On this episode of Brazil Unfiltered James Green talks with Ben Cowan, Associate Professor of History at UC San Diego and a leading expert on the history of Brazil’s military dictatorship. His 2016 book ‘Securing Sex: Morality and Repression in the Making of Cold War Brazil,’ looks at how cultural shifts in the 60s, 70s, and 80s -- especially changing attitudes towards sexuality and gender -- were held up by the dictatorship as dangers to the country. Green and Cowan discuss how this paranoia continues today on the far right, where everything from gender equality to gay rights is viewed as an existential political threat.

On December 1, 2018, a group of activists and scholars met in New York to talk about the political crisis in Brazil. What came out of that meeting was the creation of US Network for Democracy in Brazil. James Green is currently serving as the National Coordinator of the Network, and on this episode of Brazil Unfiltered he talked with colleague Merina Adams, the Network’s National Organizer. They discuss what spurred the creation of the US Network for Democracy in Brazil, how it has grown since December, and how they plan to make social progress in Brazil a priority here in the US.

It's impossible to understand contemporary Brazil without understanding life in the country's poorest and most marginalized communities. Watson Postdoctoral Fellow Nick Barnes lived in one such community -- a favela in Rio de Janeiro -- from 2012 to 2015. On this episode of Brazil Unfiltered, host James Green talks with Nick about life in Rio’s favelas: how they’re governed, how they were transformed by the World Cup and Olympics, and what the current political climate means for their future.If you're in the Providence area be sure to visit 'Maré de Dentro: Race, Gender, and Life amid the Militarization of Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas,' an art exhibit on view at The Watson Institute through May 3. More information here: https://watson.brown.edu/events/2019/art-watson-presents-mar-de-dentro-race-gender-and-life-amid-militarization-rio-de

March 14 marked the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Marielle Franco, a politician and activist in Rio de Janeiro. Her assassination shook the city -- and the country. On this episode of Brazil Unfiltered, a new podcast from the Watson Institute at Brown University, host James Green [https://watson.brown.edu/people/faculty-fellows/green] talked with Keisha-Khan Perry, an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University [https://vivo.brown.edu/display/kyperry] and author of 'Black Women against the Land Grab,' [https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/black-women-against-the-land-grab] about Franco’s life and work, and about how her assassination fits into a bigger story about Brazil’s shifting politics. They also looked at what Franco’s story can teach us about our political struggles back in the US.To listen to the Watson Institutes other podcasts click here: [https://soundcloud.com/watsoninstitute/sets]