Q&A With International Visiting Professor Isabel Cristina Ferreira dos Reis

Isabel Cristina Ferreira dos Reis
Visiting Professor for the Mellon Arts Project

1. How would you describe your overall experience as the Visiting Professor for the Mellon Arts Project?

My role as a Visiting Professor for the Mellon Arts Project has been a significant milestone in my academic career due to years of preparation and dedication. It is a role that I am proud to have achieved.  Although I have worked in North American universities before, this time, I was given the task of taking two courses as an instructor. I taught the course African and Afro-descendant in the Brazilian Slavery Society Labor, Culture, and Resistance (Fall 2023) and the course Making of Contemporary Brazil: History, Struggles, and Protagonism of the Afro-descendant Population. (Spring 2024). Being a full Professor at one of the most renowned universities in the United States was very relevant.

My time at Columbia University was marked by intense collaboration and exchange with the faculty, students, and the wider academic community, particularly the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies and IRAAS. The institution has vast resources, which I had the privilege of accessing, which was instrumental in my academic pursuits. I attended lectures, film screenings, workshops, art exhibitions, various cultural events (music, theater, performances), and social gatherings with professors, students, and staff. It was a vibrant, welcoming environment with opportunities to share knowledge and experiences. I was able to talk to people interested in learning more about my home country, Brazil. It was gratifying to give back the welcome I received at Columbia by sharing information in my field of study and professional practice, namely Afro-Brazilian history and culture from the slave-owning past to the present day.

My tenure at Columbia University was not just about imparting knowledge but also about personal growth and learning. Gathering bibliographical sources for my research significantly expanded my understanding of the African-American experience and the history of Black people in the Caribbean and other parts of South America.

I took advantage of the training courses offered by the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), which were essential for me to learn more about the methodological procedures that are part of the educational culture developed in the classrooms at Columbia University. I committed myself to familiarize with the institutional policies and the resources provided to bolster the pedagogical methods and techniques embraced at the institution.

I also searched for primary sources, such as the collection of periodicals published in the 19th century in some American states (e.g., the District of Columbia, Georgia, Alabama) available in the collections of the New York City Public Library. These primary source research notes will be added to data already collected in the Schomburg Library collection during visits I made in previous years.

 Additionally, I observed how higher education institutions like Columbia invest to guarantee the excellence of the activities developed in its academic space. Unfortunately, in Brazil, we still lack greater investment in developing research and technological innovation in the educational field. Our few more resources are concentrated in the large universities in the country's Southeast. These resources are much smaller than those available at most higher education institutions in the United States.

The dynamic environment I worked in was profoundly stimulating for me. The educational culture exposed a state of creative dynamism, with investments in new technologies and exceptional technical support for day-to-day work. In summary, my time at Columbia University was enjoyable, challenging, and satisfyingly productive.

2. What are some of your most memorable moments working with students in your classroom?

I am not exaggerating when I say that I have very fond memories of my teaching activity during my two semesters as a Visiting Professor for the Mellon Arts Project at Columbia University's AAADS, where I worked with undergraduate and graduate students. The students demonstrated exceptional responsibility and interest in the courses, consistently fulfilling all assigned activities with solid dedication and punctuality. They expressed a keen curiosity about Brazil, along with a strong commitment to their study and research pursuits, bringing forth new inquiries and demands. Notable was the enthusiasm and generosity exhibited by the Fall Semester 2023 class on the final day, as they presented me with delicate flowers, thoughtful cards, and expressions of gratitude for the enriching experience of collaborating. Moreover, the students surprised me with an assortment of traditional Brazilian traditional food, including coxinha, pastéis, and brigadeiro, culminating in a delightful goodbye gathering to celebrate the end of the semester.

3. What aspects of contemporary Brazilian culture did you bring to the classroom?

The courses explored contemporary and historical themes in Afro-Brazilian social, economic, political, and cultural life. We discussed key issues from the 19th through the 21st century to provide an understanding of the transition from enslavement to free labor in Brazil, the inclusion of Black populations in the process of forming republican society, the development of Black institutions during and after slavery in Brazil; the organization of Black social movements; the rapprochement and distancing of the Afro-Brazilian population from other Black communities in the African diaspora; some discussions about different aspect of the Afro-Brazilian culture; Black Community organizing in cities and rural areas (especially in communities reminiscent of quilombos), the transformations in Afro-Brazilian historiography, and the emergence of Black subjectivity.

4. Could you speak more about your upcoming conference in the Fall of 2024 on Brazilian culture?

The leadership of AAADS/IRAAS is organizing this conference and collaborating with Brazilian graduate students at Columbia University. These students are part of the “Afro-Brazilian Alliance at Columbia” and the “Paulo Freire Initiative” at the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS). We also have a partnership with the ‘Kilomba Collective,’ the first collective of Black Brazilian immigrant women in the U.S. This collaboration is important for discussions, dissemination, and mobilization of the student at Columbia University and other institutions in New York City. It also helps us strengthen ties and exchange experiences between people from the internal and external communities of Columbia University who share a common interest in connecting, impacting, and boosting Black populations worldwide.

We are planning three round tables. The first round table will focus on Education, Ethnic-Racial Relations and Citizenship in the African Diaspora and will feature Dr. Dyane Brito Reis Santos, a Brazilian Sociologist and Associate Professor at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia, and Fernanda Dias, a PhD student in Anthropology and Education at Columbia University. The second round table, Black Families and Resistance in the American Diaspora, will include Dr. Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-American novelist, writer, and professor in the Department of African-American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, and myself. Finally, the third round table, Arts and Ancestry in the African Diaspora, will feature Dr. Ayrson Heráclito, an Afro-Brazilian artist, scientist, curator, and professor at the Center for Arts, Humanities and Letters at UFRB, and Dr. Adama Delphine Fawundu, a contemporary visual artist, co-founder of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, and assistant professor at Columbia University in New York City.

5. What are some highlights you loved most about being in New York City?

I had a great time experiencing everyday life in New York, a megacity that is one of the most famous and celebrated places in the world.  Living with diversity in all its aspects was truly enriching. It encompassed the diversity of people's origins, genders, thoughts, opinions, interests, and cultural expressions, covering languages, arts, cuisines, religious practices, music, and ways of life. It was very interesting to witness the demonstrations defending this diversity, the aspiration for a plural world, and the efforts to combat its limitations.

Additionally, for obvious reasons, I chose to live in the Harlem community. It is close to the Schomburg Library and in the midst of this vibrant Black community in New York. It was a fortunate choice that greatly immersed me in African-American history and culture. It is also close to the Columbia University campus in Morningside.

6. What else are you currently working on that we should be looking out for?

I am currently conducting a comparative study of the experiences of Black family life in slave societies,  particularly focusing on Brazil and other American slave societies. I am analyzing the extent to which these experiences were influenced by African cultural matrices and exploring their differences and similarities.

Additionally, I began my investigations into the Black family in Bahian slave society by making use of any documentary evidence about the capacity of the captive population to create and maintain bonds of affection, association, and blood, trying to discover examples of concrete, everyday family and affective life developed by enslaved, freed or free Black men, women and children. In this way, I have carried out extensive research into archival sources, which has helped to shed light on the experience of Black family life and daily routines in 19th-century slave-owning Brazil. My work incorporates specific attention to slave motherhood as part of my broader study of Black family interactions during slavery, and I have now worked to expand my discussions by connecting them to North American and Caribbean historiographical production on gender, race, slavery, emancipation, and freedom.

7. List any outcomes and collaborations that you have developed from being a visiting professor.

As mentioned, I have been in contact with many people, especially in the academic environment. I have shared different kinds of information with these people, such as bibliographical references,  indications of primary resources for research, and suggestions for Brazilian collections and documents. The interests of these people are varied: history, economics, politics, culture (art, cuisine, religiosity, music, carnival), and approaches to the socio-economic and political reality of contemporary Brazil. These networks remain active and powerful for future projects, partnerships, collaborations, and interchanges. It is a great pleasure to continue these dialogues with fellow professors, researchers, students, artists, and activists, as I have been cultivating for over three decades since I was an undergraduate student.

I was involved in significant activities during my stay at Columbia University. The Kilomba Collective invited me to participate in Brazilian Black Consciousness Abroad: Conference & Concerts, which was held at Teacher College — Columbia University. In this event, I participated in a roundtable entitled Race, Race Relations and Society: thinking about Race/ethnicity in Brazil and the United States. Furthermore, I received an invitation from the professors Anne-Marie Veillette and Keisha-Khan Y Perry. I lectured entitled “A Brief History of Bahia, Brazil” the students of the Archiving Urban Dispossession course at the Center for African Studies & Center for Latin American and Latin Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Looking ahead, I am excited to share that I am facilitating the visit of two professors from New York City (CUNY and AAADS) and a graduate student from Teacher College - Columbia University in the Spring Semester of 2025. These respected educators are preparing to conduct research and deliver a conference. I am proud to organize this event with colleagues from the Graduate Programs at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia, the Federal University of Bahia, and the State University of Bahia.

 The graduate student from Teacher College is currently in her Ph.D. program. Our connection started when she was my student in the Fall Semester of 2023. She plans to visit Salvador to conduct research for her Ph.D. dissertation on Education in quilombola communities. I will be responsible for managing her academic activities in and around Recôncavo da Bahia. This is a responsibility that I am honored to accept. I supported her in her application to receive the Fulbright research grant, which will fund her research during her stay in Brazil.