Rodrigo Lopes de Barros

Rodrigo Lopes de Barros is a cultural critic, filmmaker, and writer. He has held several academic positions during his career. Lopes de Barros was previously a Research Affiliate in the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures at Harvard University and an Assistant Professor of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies at Boston University, where he held the position of Head of the Portuguese Section and Director (ad interim) of the Cinema & Media Studies Program. He has a BA in Law and an MA in Literary Theory from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, the latter with a fellowship from CNPQ (the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development). He received a PhD in Hispanic Literature from The University of Texas at Austin with work in the fields of Cuban and Brazilian cultures. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo with a fellowship from FAPESP and was invited to visiting faculty positions at Harvard University and the Federal University of Espírito Santo. His scholarly interests include the relationship between ethnography and literature, the avant-garde cinema and contemporary art in Cuba and Brazil, and the relationship between art, music, and national histories. Lopes de Barros is the author of Distortion and Subversion: Punk Rock Music and the Protests for Free Public Transportation in Brazil (1996-2011) (Liverpool University Press). As a filmmaker, Lopes de Barros directed, among others, the documentaries Chacal: Forbidden to Write Poetry (Chacal: Proibido Fazer Poesia), for which he received the Award of Merit in Film from the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and Ricardo Aleixo: Afro-Atlantic, which received the Pierre Verger Award in Ethnographic Film from the Brazilian Anthropological Association.