Foro Latinamericano Brings Author of ‘City of God’ to Carleton

The first-ever Foro Latinamericano, presented by Carleton College’s Latin American studies program and focusing on Brazil, will take place on Friday, April 23 and Saturday, April 24. Foro Latinoamericano provides the students, faculty and alumni of Carleton’s Latin American studies program, along with the community at large, the opportunity to participate in a major event involving contemporary Latin America.

Desmond Arias, assistant professor of government at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, will present a talk titled “City of Lights, City of Lead: Criminal Networks and Governance in Rio de Janeiro” at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 23 in the Gould Library Athenaeum, followed by a reception at 5:30 p.m. At 7 p.m., a dialogue about the filming of “City of God” will take place between Paulo Lins, author of the book “City of God” and professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and Maria Elisa Cevasco, professor of English and cultural studies at the University of Säo Paulo in Brazil. A roundtable discussion about the novel “City of God,” featuring Lins, Cevasco, Fernando Arenas, associate professor of Luso-Brazilian literature at the University of Minnesota, and Silvia López and Jorge Brioso, both assistant professors of Spanish at Carleton, will take place on Saturday, April 24 at 10 a.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum. All events are free and open to the public.

Lins published his novel “City of God” in 1997 and it has since been translated into 12 languages. Adapted for the screen in 2002, “City of God” has been praised by critics and is the first Latin American film to have been nominated for four Academy Awards, including best director, best cinematography, best film editing and best adapted screenplay.

Arias teaches on comparative crime and policing and between 1996 and 2002 he conducted fieldwork research on criminal organization, human rights and democratic order in Rio de Janeiro. In 2001 he served as a consultant on police reform for a local non-governmental organization, Viva Rio.

Cevasco is a materialist cultural critic and was a visiting professor at Duke University in 2002.

Arenas is the author of “Utopias of Otherness: Nationhood & Subjectivity in Portugal and Brazil” (2003) and co-editor of “Lusosex: Gender and Sexuality in the Portuguese-Speaking World” (2002).

Free screenings of the film “City of “God” will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21, and Thursday, April 22 in the Language and Dining Center, Room 104.

For more information and disability accommodations, call Carleton professor Silvia López at (507) 646-4240.