MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies

Machado de Assis: A Life in Literature

Agenda: October 10 - 11, 2025

All sessions will be held in Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Avenue) Room 203 at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University unless otherwise noted.  Presentations will be in either English or Portuguese.

In this section

Machado de Assis International Seminar 2025

Day 1

Friday, October 10
8:45 - 9:15 Light Breakfast
9:15 - 9:30 Welcome Remarks
Kenneth David Jackson, Sonia Netto Salomão, José Luís Jobim, and Hélio de Seixas Guimarães
9:30 - 12:00

Panel 1. A Life in Literature 
Moderator: Kenneth David Jackson

  • Regina Zilberman 
    “Machado de Assis personagem -- A life in literature”
  • Earl Fitz 
    “The Reception of Machado de Assis in the United States”
  • Paul Dixon 
    “The Hideous Gaze”
  • Craig Osterbrock 
    “On Late Style in Machado de Assis and Henry James”
12:00 - 1:00 Lunch  
1:00 - 3:00

Panel 2. Comparative Studies
Moderator: Earl Fitz

  • José Luís Jobim
    “As opiniões de Machado e Taunay sobre a nacionalização de imigrantes”
  • Anil Kumar Yadav
    “From Rio to Benaras: Machado de Assis and Premchand between Marginalisation, Ethics, and Comparative Aesthetics”
  • Yomi Folaranmi
    “The Humourist and the Pyrrhonist: Posthumous narration as ironic conceit in Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas and Il Fu Mattia Pascal”
3:00 – 3:30 Coffee Break
3:30 - 5:00

Panel 3. Race and Slavery
Moderator: Paul Dixon

  • Eduardo Coutinho
    “Machado de Assis e a escravidão”
  • Ingrid Brioso Rieumont
    “Machado de Assis’s Helena (1876) and the Politics of Legibility”
  • Fernanda Gasparini
    "Raciality and Racialization: The Construction of White, Non-White, and Non-Racialized Characters and their Dynamics in Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas”
5:00 – 5:30 Concluding Comments
José Luís Jobim
6:00 – 8:00 Dinner Buffet and Concert
Speakers and invited guests only
Location: Trumbull College, 241 Elm Street

Day 2

Saturday, October 11
9:00 - 9:30 Light Breakfast
9:30 - 12:00

Panel 4. Narrative Construction
Moderator: Eduardo Coutinho

  • Sonia Netto Salomão
    “Memorial de Aires entre o circunstancial e o eterno: mascaras machadianas”
  • Laurie Lomask
    "Itinerancy and Identity in Quincas Borba”
  • Kenneth David Jackson
    “Citation and Reference in the Early Novels”
12:00 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 3:00

Panel 5. Editor and Reader
Moderator: Hélio Seixas Guimarães

  • Eviatar Oren
    "Liberalism and Nationalism in 'Instinto de Nacionalidade'"
  • Fernando Borsato dos Santos
    “As assinaturas de Machado de Assis: unidade e dispersão autoral nos romances”
  • Sarah Burnautzki
    “Exercícios de abjeção”: o vínculo de Schwarz com a pesquisa alemã sobre Baudelaire e a sua importância para sua interpretação de Machado”
3:00 - 3:30 Coffee Break
3:30 – 5:00

Panel 6. Language and Arts
Moderator: Sonia Netto Salomão

  • Válmi Hatje-Faggion
    “Translating Memorial de Aires by Machado de Assis into German and English: The Paratexts”
  • Rogério Lima
    “Portraits of the Soul: The Role of Photography in Machado de Assis's Narrative Construction”
  • Hélio de Seixas Guimarães
    “Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas em inglês: paratextos e figuração autoral”
5:00 - 6:00

Concluding Address
Introduction: Kenneth David Jackson

  • João Almino 
    "O que interrogar hoje Machado de Assis?"
6:00 - 8:00 Dinner Buffet with Closing Remarks
Sonia Netto Salomão, Hélio de Seixas Guimarães, José Luís Jobim, and Kenneth David Jackson
Location: Luce Hall Common Room