KU to host discussion on Brazilian protests
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas faculty and students from the Brazilian community will share their thoughts on the protests in Brazil and its government’s response.
The hybrid panel discussion, “Global Conversations: Brazil,” will take place from noon to 1 p.m. Feb. 20 in the Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center. Participants can also register to attend virtually on Zoom.
Luciano Tosta, interim director of the Center for Global & International Studies, and Antônio R.M. Simões, professor of Spanish & Portuguese, will moderate the panel. The panelists will include KU students from the Brazilian community.
In early January, protesters motivated by the false belief that electoral fraud led to Jair Bolsonaro losing the 2022 presidential election stormed the National Congress, Supreme Federal Court and presidential offices in Brasília. The protesters aimed to oust the newly elected leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The panelists will provide context for these protests and the relationship between the recent political movements in Brazil and those in the U.S. Student speakers will relay their experiences living in both countries.
The event is the second in the series Global Citizenship: Critical Conversations about Equity Around the World. The first was held in the fall on the Iranian protests.
The series focuses on critical conversations about equity in a global context with the hopes of expanding campus literacy on important issues that shape the world. These conversations leverage the knowledge and experience of campus experts as well as students, faculty and staff as they come together to discuss social, cultural and political reverberations of major world events. The series is one of several collaborations across KU that emphasize the value of internationalization and understanding the intersections of culture and identity as a core framework of Jayhawks Rising.
The series is sponsored by International Affairs, the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging and The Commons. The Feb. 20 event is also sponsored by the Center for Global & International Studies and International Support Services.