Symposium Participants

Organized by Ana M. López, the Symposium will feature an international group of scholars who have reflected upon filmic carnavais in their work.

Catherine Benamou

University of California, Irvine, Visual Studies, Associate Professor

I am a teacher, scholar, consultant, translator, and media producer specializing in Latin American and Latinx film and media studies, as well as the oeuvre of Orson Welles, along with transnational flows and media texts. I am especially concerned with the role of media in representing the processes of migration and exile, and in intervening in the politics of gender and minoritarian identities. Most of my producing and consulting work has been in the realm of documentary. Translations have been done to and from French, Portuguese, and Spanish into English. My research is archive- and ethnographically based, and I prefer to open up possibilities for research participants to intervene collaboratively in the directions taken by research. Currently at work on three projects, a study of transnational television and its Latin@ diasporic audiences in four global cities, an edited volume on cinemas of immigration and exile, and a collection of essays on cinematic transformations in the Americas at specific moments during the twentieth century. Open-ended research and exhibition collaborations include Everybody’s Orson Welles at the University of Michigan and Sustainable Cinema as part of Latin American Studies in Motion (University of California).

Leslie Louise Marsh

Leslie Marsh specializes in Hispanic and Lusophone film and media studies. Her research focuses on visual practices (film, television, photography and alternative media) that pose challenges to the boundaries of belonging and intervene in the creation of new political imaginations. Another area of specialization is Hispanic and Lusophone women’s cultural production. Her book Brazilian Women’s Filmmaking: From Dictatorship to Democracy (University of Illinois Press, 2012)examines the diverse practices of women filmmakers in Brazil from the military dictatorship to the present. Currently, Leslie Marsh is working on a monograph tentatively titled, “Rebranding Brazil: Crafting the nation in film, television and new media” in which she explore the rebranding of Brazil in contemporary visual culture. She is also working on two co-edited books. The project “Building the BRICS: Media, nation branding and global citizenship,” co-edited with Dr. Hongmei Li (Communications, GSU), examines new collaborations and directions of ‘power’ (i.e., South-South, North-South, and East-West interactions) and the social, cultural and political transformations taking place in and between emerging nations. The project “The Middle Class Phenomenon in Emerging Markets: Consumers, lifestyles and social transformation,” co-edited with Dr. Hongmei Li (Communications, GSU) and Dr. Ilke Kardeş (International Economics, University of Dusseldorf) explores marked economic transformations in emerging nations and its broader impact on social, cultural and political attitudes and practices. In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis, running and enjoying nature.

João Luiz Vieira

João Luiz Vieira is a Professor in the Department of Film and Video and at the Graduate Program in Film and Audiovisual Studies at UFF-Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro. A Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from NYU (1984), he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Media Arts Dept. of the University of New Mexico (1996) and at the Dept. of Cinema and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa (2002). A member of SCMS, he is an internationally recognized scholar, lecturer and curator of Brazilian cinema and the author and editor of a number of works, including Cinema Novo and Beyond (MoMA, 1998), Câmera-faca: o cinema de Sérgio Bianchi (Portugal, 2004), book chapters in World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives (2010), The International Film Musical (2012), The Brazilian Road Movie: Journeys of (Self) Discovery (2013), Stars and Stardom in Brazilian Cinema (co-edited with Tim Bergfelder and Lisa Shaw, 2017), Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema (forthcoming, 2021, edited by Lúcia Nagib and Luciana Araújo). He has recently co-edited with B. Ruby Rich a special dossier on contemporary Braziiian cinema for Film Quarterly (Winter 2020/2021, vol. 74, number 2).

 

Symposium Organizer:

Ana M. López

Ana M. López is Professor of Communication, chaor of the Communication Department and Director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute. She also serves as Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs. Her research is focused on Latin American and Latino film and cultural studies. She is co-editor (with Marvin DLugo and Laura Podalsky) of The Routledge Companion to Latin American Cinema (2017) and the editor in chief of the Intellect journal Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas. She is also the author of the collection of essays Hollywood, Nuestra América y los Latinos (Ediciones Unión, Havana, 2012) and co-editor of three collections of essays on Latin American cinema. She has published more than three dozen essays and book chapters, addressing topics that range from melodrama and performance in the Golden Age Cinemas of Latin America, early silent cinema and modernity, and documentary to telenovelas, Cuban American media and intermediality.