In this video from Wide Angle, two American NAACP lawyers arrive to advise Brazilian civil rights organizations, leading to a discussion of differences between race relations in the U.S. and Brazil.

Sometime after 1492, the concept of the New World or America came into being, and this concept appeared differently — as an experience or an idea — for different people and in different places. This semester, we will read three groups of texts: first, participant accounts of contact between native Americans and French or English speaking Europeans, both in North America and in the Caribbean and Brazil; second, transformations of these documents into literary works by contemporaries; third, modern texts which take these earlier materials as a point of departure for rethinking the experience and aftermath of contact. The reading will allow us to compare perspectives across time and space, across the cultural geographies of religion, nation and ethnicity, and finally across a range of genres — reports, captivity narratives, essays, novels, poetry, drama, and film. Some of the earlier authors we will read are Michel Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Jean de Léry, Daniel Defoe and Mary Rowlandson; more recent authors include Derek Walcott, and J. M. Coetzee.

Consider the opposing views on the policy implemented at the University of Brasilia in this Wide Angle video.

This presentation explores the concept of experience in the works of three contemporary Brazilian authors, namely Milton Hatoum, Bernardo Carvalho and Joa

This quiz will test the pupil's general knowledge about Brazil.

The Portuguese language lessons of ClicaBrasil highlight aspects of Brazilian culture. They are designed for intermediate to advanced students, but are accessible to everyone. Each lesson includes videos of Brazilians from all walks of life speaking naturally about their lives and their country. All lessons integrate reading, writing, listening and comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, oral communication and cultural activities with the videos.

This course will introduce the student to the history of Latin and South America from the year in which European explorers first discovered and began to colonize the region to the early 19th century, when many Latin and South American colonies declared their independence from European rule. The student will learn about the major political, economic, and social changes that took place throughout Latin and South America during this 400-year period. By the end of the course, the student will understand how the interaction between native peoples and European settlers created diverse and complex colonial societies throughout Latin and South America, and why the colonies of the region eventually declared their independence from European political control. Upon successful completion of this course, student will be able to: Think critically about the history of Latin and South America from the pre-colonial period though the beginning of the 19th century; Compare and contrast the political, economic, and social practices of the peoples of Iberia, Africa, and the Americas in the pre-colonial period; Analyze the political, social, and military interactions between Iberian explorers and conquerors and the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries; Identify how Spanish colonists settled Latin and South America in the 16th century and analyze the role played by imperial and religious institutions in colonization efforts; Assess the role of European Mercantile policies in the formation of colonial economies and trade networks; Analyze the structure of Spanish and Portuguese colonial societies and assess the role of women, indigenous peoples, and Afro-Latinos in these societies; Students will be able to assess the status of Latin and South American colonies in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 17th and 18th centuries and identity how European conflicts affected political and economic life in the colonies; Identify how the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century led to the rise of independence movements in the colonies of Latin and South America; Assess how political revolutions and wars for independence throughout Latin and South America ended European colonial control of the region, and compare and contrast the consequences of these revolutions for ethnic European and indigenous populations; Analyze and interpret primary source documents from the pre-colonial period though the beginning of the 19th century using historical research methods. (History 221)

This video from Wide Angle tells the story of two identical twins, one of whom was classified as white and the other as black, highlighting the difficulty in defining race in Brazilian society.

In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. Attention focuses on how we know about and represent past eras and other peoples, as well as on the history of struggles between native Americans and Europeans.

A compilation of video scenarios of people interacting with each other in Portuguese. Conversations include dialogs, questions, turn taking exchanges, clarifications, false starts, hugs, laughter, asides. The scenarios are enhanced by transcriptions, translations, content analysis, and notes and discussion blogs.

Within Brazil, the Northeast region has been represented in popular music, literature and film as a wellspring of cultural authenticity, pre-modern roots and a living past. However, it has also been the site of terrible periodic droughts and mass migrations that have contributed to it being portrayed as a space of misery. Linked to its status as a space of poverty, the arid serta

D-Lab is a design studio course in which students work on international development projects for under served communities. The class is focused on a participatory, iterative prototyping design process, with particular attention on the constraints faced when designing for developing communities. Students work in multidisciplinary teams on term-long projects in collaboration with community partners, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields. Students will learn about their partner communities through the collaborative design process and be exposed to many hands-on fabrication and prototyping skills relevant to development at MIT and manufacturing in their partner community. The course will consist of hands-on labs, guest speakers, and a guided design process with review by experts and professionals in development and design.

"A video poem on colonialism, 'Darkness of My Language' reveals how this system defines personal identities and perpetuates cultural ignorance. Produced in Canada by Brazilian Silvana Afram, the program is both documentary in nature as well as subjective in tone. While the soundtrack is composed of tourists' exasperating questions, the images evoke the artist" distance from home." In black and white, closeups of faces are accompanied by voiceover attempts to respond to questions about Brazilian identity. It incorporates text in Portuguese by Carl Jung. Little credit information accompanies this short work.

Throughout much of the 1980s, deforestation in Brazil eliminated more than 15,000 square kilometers (9000 square miles) per year. That pace has only increased through the 90s and into the 21st century. Brazil is also home to more than a quarter of Earths tropical forests. Considering that the band of lush green that circles the globe through many equatorial nations is fundamental to the overall health of the whole planets environment, careful monitoring of forest health in the tropics is essential. Tropical forests act as major carbon sinks, places where ambient carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be absorbed by growing things and sequestered for years. Definitive evidence shows that excess carbon dioxide can contribute to the greenhouse effect and speed global warming. Similarly, tropical forests also act as a primary producer of oxygen. In the respiration process that absorbs gaseous carbon dioxide, trees and other plants give off oxygen. It is for these and a host of other reasons why scientists and policy makers need to monitor and forestall wholesale deforestation. This sequence shows how profligate clear cutting can influence that trust. Data gathered over time by several in the Landsat series of spacecraft shows enormous tracts of forest disappearing in Rondonia, Brazil. This territory underwent an enormous rise in population towards the end of the twentieth century, buoyed by cheap land offered by the national government for agricultural use. As you see the visualization progress, it is useful to note how the human phenomenon of deforestation generally works, especially in the dense tropical forests of Brazil. Systematic cutting of a road opens new territory to potential deforestation by penetrating into new areas. Clearing of vegetation along the sides of those roads tends to fan out to create a pattern akin to a fish skeleton. As new paths appear in the woods, new areas become vulnerable. The spaces between the skeletal bones fall to defoliation, and another inch of the Earths biological rudder is no longer reliably steering the planet into the future.

Recent years have seen an astonishing spread of democracy to many Asian, African, and Latin American countries. Subject explores the causes of these dramatic political transitions; the challenges democratizing countries in the developing world face; and the question of whether these new democracies will endure. Subject explores these questions using film, fiction, popular journalism, and scholarly research as a basis for discussion. Focus on a small number of countries (Brazil, Mexico, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, and Senegal) allows exploration of relevant topics in greater depth.

This course will introduce the student to the history of the world's major civilizations from medieval times to the early modern era. The student will learn about the pivotal political, economic, and social changes that took place in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe during this period. By the end of the course, the student will understand how many different civilizations evolved from isolated societies into expansive, interconnected empires capable of exerting global influence. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: Think critically and analytically about world history in the medieval and early modern eras; Identify and describe the emergence, decline, and main features of the Byzantine Empire; Identify the origins and characteristics of the European medieval period and describe the rapidly changing forces at work in society, the economy, and religion during this time; Identify the origins of the Aztec and Inca civilizations and assess how these empires affected socio-economic development in the Americas; Identify the origins of the Tang and Song dynasties in China and assess the impact of these empires on Chinese government, society, religion, and economy during what scholars refer to as the 'golden age'; Identify the origins of the Mongol Empire, which dominated much of Asia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Students will analyze the nature of this empire created by nomads; Identify the reasons for a changing balance in the world economy in the 1400s and analyze why Europe superseded Asia as the most dominant civilization on the globe; Assess how and why the European Age of Discovery had such a large impact on the New World, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia; Identify the origins and characteristics of the Renaissance and describe its impact on European civilization as a whole; Identify the origins of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe and assess how this movement altered the social, political, and religious fabric of Europe; Identify the origins of colonial Brazil and New Spain. Students will also be able to assess the impact of Spanish and Portuguese colonization on the New World, Africa, and Europe; Identify the origins of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires and assess the unique characteristics of these dynasties and their impact upon Asia and the world; Identify the origins of the Atlantic slave trade, assessing how this forced migration of peoples affected Africa, Africans, Europe, and the New World; Analyze and describe the Asian trading world, the Ming dynasty in China, the Ňwarring states,' and early modern eras in Japan; Analyze and interpret primary source documents from the medieval period to the early modern era using historical research methods. (History 221)

This module considers strategies for teaching George Dunham's travel journal A Journey to Brazil in relation to other nineteenth-century U.S. travel narratives.

Why are some countries democratic and others not? How do political institutions affect economic development and political conflict? How do politics in the United States compare to politics in other countries? This class first reviews cultural, social, and institutional explanations for political outcomes. It then turns to more detailed examination of specific topics: ethnic conflict in India, democratic collapse in Weimar Germany, regional disparities in Italy, market-oriented reform (or lack thereof) in Brazil, corruption in Mexico, ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, the impoverishment of post-Communist Russia, and the prospects for democracy in China. Each of these examples is meant to stand in for a range of cases, allowing you to extrapolate to new material. At the end of the course, you should be able to analyze political events around the world, drawing on the theoretical explanations provided in the class.

This class first offers some basic analytical frameworks -- culture, social structure, and institutions -- that you can use to examine a wide range of political outcomes. We then use these frameworks to understand (1) the relationship between democracy and economic development and (2) the relative centralization of political authority across countries. We will use theoretical arguments and a wide range of case studies to address several questions: Why are some countries democratic and others not? How does democracy affect economic development and political conflict? Why do some countries centralize power while others threaten to fall apart through secession and civil war? We will use examples from a wide range of countries including Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Mexico, and the United States. The lessons drawn from these countries will prepare you to analyze other countries of your own choosing in the paper assignments. At the end of the course, you should be able to analyze political events around the world, drawing on the theoretical explanations provided in the class.