Positions

Associate Professor, Tenured since 1985
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
School of Letters

I teach at graduate and undergraduate levels, and advise students at the Undergraduate Research Program and the M.A. and Ph.D. programs. I also supervise sabbatical projects. I have been on M.A. and Ph.D. examining committees, on hiring committees, and on college evaluation committees, at the request of the Ministry of Education. I have also done ad hoc work for Fapesp and the Fulbright Commission.

I chaired or acted in the organizing committees of the following international congresses: Para Sempre Poe/Forever Poe (2009, with Purdue Univ.), Mediations-VIII Congresso da Abralic (2002), Victor Hugo, Genius without Frontiers (2002), Colóquio Abralic 2001 - Valores: Arte, Mercado, Política (2001), The Art of Elizabeth Bishop: An International Conference and Celebração in Brazil (1999, with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Some of the administration positions I have held are director of the Graduate Program in Letters: Literary Studies, advisor to UFMG's Dean of Research Programs, member of UFMG's Permanent Committee for Teachers' Affairs, as well as Head of the Department of Anglo-Germanic Letters (twice). I was secretary and then vice-president of the Brazilian Association of American Studies (ABEA).

Education

Sabbatical Project, Comparative Literature, 2005-06
Brown University. Providence, RI, USA
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil
Project title: Crimes, Sins, and Monstrosities: Evil in Literature.

Sabbatical Project, Comparative Literature, 1997-98
Brown University. Providence, RI, USA
Project title: Enigma as Knowledge in Auster, Coover, DeLillo, and Pynchon.

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, 1991
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Indiana University. Bloomington, IN, USA
Dissertation title: World Building in Non-Realistic Literature.

M.A. in English, 1986
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Thesis title: E. A. Poe: The Fall of the Masque.

Main Publications

Da fabricação de monstros. Edited with Lyslei Nascimento. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2009.

Monstros como metáforas do mal. In: JEHA, Julio (org.). Monstros e monstruosidades na literatura. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2007. p. 9-31.

Entre logos e mythos em City of God, de Doctorow. In: SIMPÓSIO INTERNACIONAL SOBRE RELIGIÕES, RELIGIOSIDADES E CULTURA, 2., 2006, Dourados, MS. Anais.... Dourados, MS: UFGD/UFMS, 2006.

As senhoras das Minas: representação feminina no diário de viagem de Alexander Caldcleugh. In: DUARTE, C. L.; ASSIS, E.; BEZERRA, K. C. (Orgs.). Gênero e Representação: teoria, história e crítica. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2002. p. 199-204.

Lembranças de uma vida feliz. By Marianne North. Belo Horizonte: Fundação João Pinheiro, 2001. Trans. of A Life.

Calvino's Cloven viscount from page to stage. Cadernos de Tradução, Florianópolis, v. 7, n. 1, p. 19-30, 2001.

The semiosis of fantasy. Semiotica, Bloomington, v. 131, n. 3/4, p. 359-375, 2000.

As arestas da ironia. By Linda Hutcheon. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2000. Trans. of Irony's Edge.

Viagens na América do Sul, durante os anos de 1819-20-21. By Alexander Caldcleugh. Belo Horizonte: Fundação João Pinheiro, 2000. Trans. of Voyages in South America, during the Years of 1819-20-21.

World Modeling. Semiotica, Bloomington, v. 102, n. 1/2, p. 163-173, 1994.

Fearing the Nonexistent. Semiotica, Bloomington, v. 94, n. 3/4, p. 349-359, 1993.

Research topics

I work in the following areas: Literature and other semiotic systems; Literature, history, and cultural memory; Literature and representations of the Other. My focus is on evil in literature.

Updated 17-apr-10