KU to host Brazilian Studies Association starting July 2026

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas will serve as the new home for the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) for a six-year term beginning in July 2026. BRASA is an international, interdisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting Brazilian studies and fostering scholarly exchange on Brazil and its global connections.

The BRASA secretariat will operate under the direction of KU's Luciano Tosta, who will serve as executive director. Tosta is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and director of the Center for Global & International Studies at KU. 

Tosta’s research about race and ethnicity spans hemispheric American studies, Iberian American studies and Global Africa studies, with emphasis on Brazil's transnational movements in fiction and the arts. A native of Salvador, Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, he is the author of “Confluence Narratives: Ethnicity, History and Nation Making in the Americas.” His work on Brazilian and Brazilian American literature, film and music has appeared in journals and edited volumes across the United States, Brazil, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The secretariat will be housed at KU's Center for Global & International Studies, with additional support from the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and KU International Affairs, which oversees the university's area studies centers. Jennifer Duhamel, assistant director of the Center for Global & International Studies at KU, will serve as BRASA's administrative director.

The university hosts a number of Brazilianist scholars committed to advancing BRASA's mission. And the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies at KU comprises more than 100 core, affiliate and research faculty members, fostering a strong intellectual environment for BRASA's work in promoting Brazilian studies, Tosta said.