About: The Leitorado Brasileiro Guimarães Rosa
The Leitorado Brasileiro Guimarães Rosa, formerly the Leitorado Brasileiro, is a public program of the Brazilian government intended to raise awareness internationally about the linguistic diversity of Brazilian Portuguese, as well as its literature and culture. This initiative of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (known as Itamaraty) promotes the work of Brazilian lecturers in major universities around the world. The first Brazilian lectureship was created in 1953 at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Since then, the program has undergone several changes and was institutionalized in 1999 through the partnership between the Itamaraty and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (known by its Portuguese acronym CAPES). Since then, the selection of lecturers has been carried out through a competitive bidding process.
Brazilian lecturers are an integral part of the Itamaraty teaching network, which also includes 24 units of the Guimarães Rosa Institute (IGR), formerly known as Brazilian Cultural Centers Abroad, and 6 Centers for Portuguese Language Studies. In March 2022, Decree 11.024 was published, approving the new regulatory structure of the MRE and creating the IGR, changing the title of the lecturers to Leitores Guimarães Rosa.
From 1953 to 2022, 376 Brazilian lecturers served in 167 universities in 68 countries. Currently, the Leitorado Guimarães Rosa has 40 active units. At the University of Heidelberg, the Brazilian lectureship has existed since 2014, although between 2020 and 2022 it was inactive. It resumed activities in November 2022, now known as the Leitorado Brasileiro Guimarães Rosa. Information about the current lecturer can be found here.
Since 2021, the Leitorado Guimarães Rosa has hosted Conecta Leitores, a free annual symposium held in hybrid format. The aim of the symposium is to promote dialogue between the Leitores Guimarães Rosa and the academic community, including Portuguese teachers in different modalities, cultural diplomacy personnel, and researchers dedicated to the promotion of Brazilian language, literature, and culture. This year, the 4th Conecta Leitores, with the theme “Cultural Mediation: Alterity, Identity Relations and Intercultural Encounters”, will be held from August 5 to 8, 2024 at the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) in Maputo, Mozambique, with the support of the State University of Amazonas (UEA) in Manaus, Brazil. Learn more about Conecta Leitores.