Brazilian writer Maria Firmina dos Reis challenged social indifference through her portrayals of motherhood, education, and citizenship. By analyzing her life and works, the presentation explores how literature can inspire civic engagement and contest exclusionary narratives of belonging.
Jordan Benjamin Jones is an assistant professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at Brigham Young University. He holds a PhD in Portuguese & Brazilian Studies from Brown University and master’s degrees in Luso-Brazilian Literatures (BYU), secondary English education (Johns Hopkins), and Hispanic Studies (Brown). He is the translator of Celso Furtado’s The Myth of Economic Development (Polity, 2020) and of Paloma Vidal’s novel Somewhere (Amherst College Press, forthcoming 2026). His research focuses on antislavery texts, race and human rights in contemporary literature and culture, translation, and inter-American literary studies.
Part of our fall 2025 lecture series, "The Future of Citizenship."