The lecture will focus on the diffusion of Brazilian culture after the end of the colonial period in the Middle East. Professor John Tofik Karam will discuss how Brazilian architecture, cinema, literature, and poetry gained greater prominence in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria after the formal end of Anglo-French rule. Throughout the lecture, Professor Karam will also highlight how diaspora (mahjar, in Arabic) helped popularize Brazilian cultural forms in those Arab countries which were still facing Eurocentric legacies after their independences.

John Tofik Karam is the Director of the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies and Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His scholarship explores Latin America-Middle East connections in the making of global cultural and political economies. His first book, Another Arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese Ethnicity in Neoliberal Brazil (Temple University Press) won awards from the Arab American National Museum and the Brazilian Studies Association. He coedited the volume, Crescent over Another Horizon: Islam in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino U.S.A. (University of Texas Press). Set at the trinational border between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, Dr. John Tofik Karam’s most recent book is Manifold Destiny: Arabs at an American Crossroads of Exceptional Rule (Vanderbilt University Press)."