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PhD, Duke University, 2005

Dr. Draper's general field of research is Latin American Cultural Studies and he specializes in Brazilian literature, music, cinema and popular culture. His first monograph is Forró and Redemptive Regionalism from the Brazilian Northeast: Popular Music in a Culture of Migration (Lang, 2010). The analytical framework for this study of the forró musical genre is primarily grounded in literary and cultural studies, subaltern studies and history. This unique theoretical approach reveals the broad historical development of the genre and its participants' evolving efforts to represent the Brazilian Northeast, its people, and their large-scale migration.

Recent journal articles:

  • “Racial Democracy and Interracial Marriage in Brazil and the United States,” The Latin Americanist (Sept. 2011)
  • "Forró's Wars of Maneuver and Position: Popular Northeastern Music, Critical Regionalism, and a Culture of Migration," Latin American Research Review 46:1 (Feb. 2011)

Recent book chapters:

  • “Cinematic Portrayals of Teen Girls in Brazil’s Urban Peripheries: Realist and Subjectivist Approaches to Adolescent Dreams and Fantasy in Sonhos roubados and Nina,” in Representing History, Class and Gender in Spain and Latin America: Children and Adolescents in Film, ed. Carolina Rocha and Georgia Seminet (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)
  • “Reimagining Rosinha with Andrucha Waddington and Elena Soarez: Nature, Woman, and Sexuality in the Brazilian Northeast from Popular Music to Cinema,” in New Trends in Argentine and Brazilian Cinema, ed. Carolina Rocha & Cacilda Rêgo, (Intellect Books, 2011)

Recent conference presentations:

  • “Two Hungaries and Many Saudades: Transnational and Postnational Emotional Vectors in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema,” part of the Diasporas and Brazilian Cinema panel at the Brazilian Studies Association Conference XI, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 9.7.12
  • “The Favela in Cinema in a Post-Racial Democracy Era: Filmic Portrayals of Interracial Social Relationships in a Context of Poverty and Criminality,” part of the Favela and Film panel at the XXX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, San Francisco, CA, 5.24.12
  • “A visão perspicaz do forró quanto à migração interna [Forró’s Perspicacious Vision Regarding Internal Migration],” Ninth Anthropology Conference of Mercosul: Cultures, Encounters and Inequalities (Culturas, Encontros e Desigualdades), Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil, 7.11.11
  • “The Matriarchy of the Periphery in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema” at the Mulheres da Retomada [Women of the Cinematic Revival] Conference, (Tulane University, Feb. 2011).

Dr. Draper is also continuing his work on a book-length research project analyzing Brazilian representations of saudade (a Portuguese word for a structure of feeling combining love, remembrance, and grief). This project explores the intellectual history developed around saudade from medieval Portugal to present-day Brazil, and utilizes a critical look at this history to contextualize and analyze the ideology and psychology of saudade in the elite and popular literary, musical and filmic production of Brazil in the 20th and 21st centuries. The project also frames the study of saudade within the literature of the emergent interdisciplinary field of emotion studies / affect theory.

Professor Draper is the Portuguese Language Coordinator of the Romance Languages and Literatures Department and developed the Minor in Luso-Brazilian Area Studies (link opens new window) for undergraduates desiring a focus on Luso-Brazilian cultures and/or peoples in their coursework. Potential minors should feel free to contact him for further information.

Dr. Draper also co-chairs the department's Faculty and Graduate Student Seminar Series.

Jack Draper

Contact:
129 Arts & Science Bldg.
573-884-5974
draperj@missouri.edu

book cover
Forró and Redemptive Regionalism from the Brazilian Northeast


Representing History, Class, and Gender in Spain and Latin America

book cover
New Trends in Argentine and Brazilian Cinema

Romance Languages & Literatures
143 Arts & Science Bldg.
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211 USA
tel. 573-882-4874
fax. 573-884-8171
general inquiries: romancelanguages@missouri.edu
graduate program: rlgrad@missouri.edu