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Associate Professor of
Spanish & Portuguese
Wright Hall 206;
(413)585-3361
mharriso@email.smith.edu
B.A., Mary Baldwin College
M.A., University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Brown University
At Smith I teach Portuguese language as well as interdisciplinary courses in Brazilian studies. Having grown up in both the United States and Brazil, I am bilingual in Portuguese and English, and my translations of contemporary Brazilian fiction often appear in Brasil/Brazil, Amazonian Literary Review and Metamorphoses. Before receiving a Ph.D. in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University, I earned a Masters degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Brazilian Art, and my subsequent research has continued to draw from, and often unite, literature and the arts.
My research in contemporary Brazilian fiction and art addresses ways in which literature and visual culture can contribute to raising social consciousness, particularly in terms of gender, class, and race marginality. In 2007 I edited Uma Cidade em Camadas, a transnational volume of essays on contemporary Brazilian writer Luiz Ruffato. My published work has appeared in Chasqui: Journal of Latin American Literature, Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea, Latin American Literary Review, Luso-Brazilian Review, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, Women’s Review of Books, and other publications. I am currently researching the work of Brazilian women filmmakers and visual artists.
“The Brazilian Body” is an example of the courses that I teach here at Smith focusing on gender construction, stereotypes, and representations of the body, as well as issues of social and economic displacement and marginality. "Contemporary Cityscapes: Mapping Brazilian Culture onto an Urban Grid" addresses issues of migration and poverty, marginality and human rights including gender and racial biases, within an urban context. I also teach a seminar entitled “Multiple Lenses of Marginality: New Brazilian Filmmaking by Women,” and am developing a new topics course on environmental issues in Brazil.
June 10, 2009