News 2010: East Timor President to visit UMass Dartmouth Sept. 27

News 2010: East Timor President to visit UMass Dartmouth Sept. 27
East Timor President to visit UMass Dartmouth Sept. 27

José Ramos-Horta to introduce UMD book on Portugal-Asia Relations

East Timor President José Ramos-Horta will deliver the keynote address at the Sept. 27 launching of Parts of Asia: Beyond Lusotopic Nostalgia, a collection of essays by contemporary scholars and writers addressing Luso-Asian and Luso-Pacific connections in history, politics, society, art and culture. The book is published by the UMass Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture. 

The event--free and open to the public--is scheduled for Monday, September 27, 2010 at 11:30 a.m. in the Claire T. Carney Library Browsing Area. Parking will be available in Lot 13. The event will also feature a presentation by Prof. Cristiana Bastos, who edited the publication. 

The enclaves of Goa, Macao, Timor, among other locations in Asia with a historic connection to Portugal, appear in this volume not as vestiges of a bygone empire but as catalysts for developing new topics and angles of analysis that expand current debates on colonialism, post-colonialism, displacement, and interconnected global histories. 

Parts of Asia is the 32nd book published by the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture since 1998. It represents an extraordinary contribution to the field of Lusophone Studies and highlights the efforts of our Portuguese Studies program in establishing important connections between the academic world and political leadership, with the objective of promoting better relations between peoples and nations. 

Prof. Bastos, an anthropologist at the Institute of Social Sciences, Lisbon, received her doctorate from the City University of New York. Presently she is a visiting professor in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University, under the Michael Teague program funded by the Luso-American Foundation. She has conducted research on contemporary urban Brazil, on Portuguese colonial societies, and on several projects about health, science and society. She has participated in a number of activities at UMass Dartmouth over the years. 

Contact: 
Prof. Frank Sousa 
Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture 
508.999.8255