Marina Bedran is an assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese. She works on literature, visual culture, media studies, ecocriticism, and the environmental humanities. Her current book project is an interdisciplinary study of the artistic turn to Amazonia in postwar Brazil. The book examines the work of Brazilian and Brazil-based artists between the 1950s and the late 1980s, showing how they experimented with innovative aesthetic forms that heed Amazonia and, in so doing, articulated a critique of developmentalism and proposed new ways of thinking about indigeneity, the environment, and the more-than-human.
Her first book, A aventura do estilo: ensaios e correspondência de Henry James e Robert Louis Stevenson, is an examination of the correspondence between Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson, which she translated into Portuguese. It was published in Brazil with Editora Rocco in 2017 and shows how this unlikely dialogue impacted their poetics and modern literature more broadly.
She received her Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese from Princeton University, where she was awarded a Lassen Fellowship from the Program in Latin American Studies – PLAS (2014–15) and a Dissertation Fellowship from the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies – PIIRS (2019–20). She also has a master’s degree in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature from the University of São Paulo – USP.
She co-edits Revista Rosa, a Brazilian online magazine, and serves on the editorial board of the Edinburgh Critical Studies in Atlantic Literatures and Cultures at Edinburgh University Press.
GRADUATE COURSES
Contemporary Latin American Cinema
Latin America in a Globalizing World: Environmental History and Ecocriticism
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
Latin American Ecocriticism
Planet Amazonia: History, Culture, and the Environment
Literary Readings in Portuguese
Radical Women: Brazilian Literature, Art, and Culture
Cultura e ditadura [Culture and Dictatorship]
Literary Readings Across the Lusophone World
Health, Science, Environment
Publications
“Projetando a Amazônia: desenvolvimentismo e ecologia no cinema experimental brasileiro dos anos 1970,” Antítesis, v. 16, n. 31, June 2023, pp. 58–81. https://doi.org/10.5433/1984-3356.2023v16n31p172-201
“Art of the Counter-Archive: Rosângela Rennó’s Books and the Secret Files of the Dictatorship,” ARTMargins, 12.1, February 2023. https://doi.org/10.1162/artm_a_00336
“Beyond the Confines of Classed Spaces: Mutual Care, Interdependency, and Feminist Filmmaking,” Radical Equalities and Global Feminist Filmmaking: An Anthology, eds. Bernadette Wegenstein and Lauren Benjamin Mushro, Vernon Press, 2022.
“The Third Millennium: Jorge Bodanzky’s Delirious and Prescient Amazonian Message,” ReVista – Harvard Review of Latin America, vol. 19, n. 3, Spring/Summer 2020. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/the-third-millennium-jorge-bodanzkys-delirious-and-prescient-amazonian-message/. Translated to Portuguese and published in Revista Rosa, vol. 2, n.2, November 2020. https://revistarosa.com/2/terceiro-milenio
“Talvez o último romântico: Robert Louis Stevenson da Ilha do Tesouro aos mares do sul,” A Ilha do Tesouro, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Rio de Janeiro, Antofágica: 2019).
“Iracema 1865/1974,” Ecologia e (In)Giustizia in Brasile, special issue of Letterature d’America, no. 170, 2018, pp. 21–42.
Public Writing:
“Will Brazil’s Actions Restrict Indigenous Peoples’ Rights?,” Latin America Advisor, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, p. 3. https://bit.ly/3N7YnxZ
“How Will Brazil’s Indigenous People Fare Under Lula?,” Latin America Advisor, Wednesday, February 8, 2023, p. 3. https://bit.ly/3RL8M4p
“Como as artes brasileiras trataram da Amazônia,” Nexo Políticas Públicas, February 2 2022. https://pp.nexojornal.com.br/academico/2022/Como-as-artes-brasileiras-trataram-da-Amaz%C3%B4nia
“Justiça feminista – Introdução,” Revista Rosa, vol. 4, n. 2, October 2021. https://revistarosa.com/4/justica-feminista
“Iracema fala, de Nuno Ramos: “a arte no front desse inesgotável pior,”” Revista Rosa, vol. 4, n. 1, August 2021. https://revistarosa.com/4/iracema-fala
Introduction to “Formações de areia: novos materialismos literários,” Revista Rosa, vol. 3, n. 3, June 2021. https://revistarosa.com/3/formacoes-de-areia
“Cildo para forjar outros mundos.” El País Brasil, 12 March 2018. https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/03/12/opinion/1520893671_060522.html
“A aventura do estilo.” Correio IMS, June 2017.
https://www.correioims.com.br/uncategorized/a-aventura-do-estilo-por-marina-bedran/
“Atlas.org.” Revista ZUM, no. 4, April 2013, pp. 22-24.
