UW-River Falls to host U of M speaker as part of the Year of Brazil program

September 8, 2016—The University of Wisconsin-River Falls will host a presentation, "The Sound and Story of Brazilian Portuguese," by visiting University of Minnesota Professor Sophia Beal on Monday, Sept. 26, in the St. Croix Room of the University Center. Beal will speak from 4-5 p.m. with refreshments beginning at 3:30 p.m.

The talk introduces Brazilian Portuguese, grounding it within the history and culture of not only Brazil, but the seven countries where Portuguese is the official language. The event is free and open to the public.

Beal is the author of "Brazil under Construction: Fiction and Public Works" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and co-editor (along with Bruce Robbins and Michael Rubenstein) of "Infrastructuralism," a special issue of Modern Fiction Studies published in 2015. Her articles related to Brazilian fiction and urbanism have appeared in the Luso-Brazilian Review, Romance Notes, Hispania, ellipsis, Brasil-Brazil, Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea, Revista Escritos, and elsewhere. She earned her Ph.D. in Portuguese and Brazilian studies from Brown University and was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Tulane University in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota.

The presentation is a collective effort between the UW-River Falls Year of Brazil Committee and the Language Matters Series.

Language Matters is a series of presentations and discussions on issues regarding second language teaching and learning. The goal of Language Matters is for faculty, staff, and students to share their experiences, expertise, and knowledge with our campus and local community.

For more information, email rhonda.petree@uwrf.edu or call 715-425-4520.