A. CARLOS QUÍCOLI
FULL PROFESSOR
E-mail: quicoli@humnet.ucla.edu Phone: 310-206-8584 Office: 5325 Rolfe Hall

JOSÉ LUIZ PASSOS
​FULL PROFESSOR
E-mail: passos@humnet.ucla.edu Phone: 310-825-6659 Office: Rolfe Hall 5333

José Luiz Passos is a Professor of Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Cultures. He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from UCLA in 1998. Prior to joining the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UCLA in 2008, he held a tenured appointment at UC Berkeley. He was recently the inaugural director of the UCLA Center for Brazilian Studies (2008-2011). He is the author of Ruínas de linhas puras (1998) — on Mário de Andrade and Brazilian modernism — and Romance com pessoas (2014), which interprets Shakespeare’s influence on Machado de Assis’s realist fiction. He has published two novels with Alfaguara: Nosso grão mais fino (2009) and O sonâmbulo amador (2012), a finalist for the São Paulo Prize, and the winner of the 2013 Portugal Telecom Literary Prize for best novel and best book of the year, as well as winner of the 2014 Brasília Literary Prize for best novel. José Luiz Passos is also the author of a stage play and short stories published in Argentina, Brazil, France, and the United States. His current research and teaching focus on contemporary fiction, Machado de Assis, and travel in the nineteenth century.

PATRÍCIA LINO
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
E-mail: patricialino@g.ucla.edu Office: Rolfe Hall 5328

​Patrícia Lino (Portugal, 1990) is Assistant Professor of Luso-Brazilian literatures and cinema and the author of O Kit de Sobrevivência do Descobridor Português no Mundo Anticolonial (2020), Não é isto um livro (2020), and Manoel de Barros e A Poesia Cínica (2019). She recently directed Anticorpo. A Parody of the Laughable Empire (US 2019; Brazil 2020) and Vibrant Hands (2019). She is also the author of the mixed poetry book-album I Who Cannot Sing (2020). Lino presented, published, and exhibited essays, poems, and illustrations in more than six countries. Her current research focuses on contemporary poetry, intermedial poetry, visual and audiovisual culture, Brazilian film, and literary parody. Website.

​ALESSANDRA DE PAULA
​LECTURER
E-mail: alessandraps@g.ucla.edu Office: Rolfe Hall 4331

Professor and Sociolinguistic Researcher of Brazilian Portuguese. She is a Tenured Assistant Professor of Portuguese and Philology at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), who is on leave of absence. She has several publications about the Portuguese phonological system in the Brazilian variety (Rio de Janeiro dialect), and in African varieties (Portuguese from Mozambique and from Sao Tome). Lecturer of Brazilian Portuguese at UCLA, she is currently working in the area of Portuguese as a Foreign Language, and as a Language of Inheritance.

​​BEN BURT
​ADJUNCT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
​E-mail: bburt@ucla.edu Office: Rolfe Hall 4333

My research centers on Brazilian literature, cinema, and culture. My dissertation, “Cities of Dreams and Despair: Utopia and Dystopia in Contemporary Brazilian Film and Literature,” explores the role of utopian thought in depictions of Brasília and São Paulo since 1980. Through analysis of a diverse corpus of texts and films, I identify a widespread preference towards cautious hopefulness and dystopian thinking in the current, democratic period. Brasília’s history as a failed utopian project occasionally inspires radical aspiration, yet revolutionary social dreaming remains infrequent while social and ideological critique predominate. I am currently developing a book proposal based on my dissertation that likewise includes representations of Recife. As part of this research, I am exploring connections between utopian studies, ecocriticism, geocriticism to examine the underexplored concept of utopian and dystopian space. Further, I am in the initial stages of researching two projects: a study of utopia and dystopia in contemporary Mexican film and literature and a consideration of Afropessimism in Afro-Brazilian literature.

RANDAL JOHNSON
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR EMERITUS
​
Randal Johnson joined the faculty of UCLA’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese in 1994 after teaching at Rutgers University (1977-1983) and the University of Florida (1983-1994). A scholar of Luso-Brazilian literature and culture, with a special emphasis on Brazilian cinema, he published numerous monographs, edited books, and essays on diverse aspects of his research interests (see complete list below). In additional to maintaining a high level of scholarly productivity, during his career at UCLA he was also active in faculty governance. He served as chair of the department on two occasions (1996-2001, 2013-2015), director of the University of California’s Education Abroad Program in Brazil (2002-2004), director of the Latin American Institute (2005-2010), and Interim Vice Provost for International Studies and Director of the International Institute (2010-2011). He established the department’s summer study abroad program in Salvador, Bahia, which ran from 2001 through 2016, transformed the Program on Brazil into the Center for Brazilian Studies and the Program on Mexico into the Center for Mexican Studies, and created the Center for Southern Cone Studies. He also established, in collaboration with the Consulate-General of Brazil in Los Angeles, the monthly Brazilian Film Series (2007-present). The Brazilian government has twice recognized his efforts in promoting Brazilian culture, honoring him with the Order of the Southern Cross (1999) and the Order of Rio Branco (2018). He retired from the UCLA faculty in 2018.