With profound sorrow the Department of Spanish and Portuguese announces that Professor Milton Azevedo passed away Friday, March 6, 2026, after a long illness.
Professor Azevedo (born in Ouro Fino, Minas Gerais, Brazil, April 7, 1942), received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell. He taught there and at the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana before coming to Berkeley in 1976 as Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Director of Language Instruction.
Lucero invites graduate students and scholars to participate in an interdisciplinary dialogue in which every volume focuses on a specific concern related to our disciplines. We are currently accepting submissions to our 2026 edition on a rolling basis through April 1st.
Derek Allen received the Berkeley-Portugal Research Fund through The Center for Portuguese Studies, which supports cooperation between UC Berkeley and Portugal. Derek will perform research in Portugal during Spring 2026 under the supervision of Professor Maria do Carmo Piçarra at ICNOVA in Lisbon.
Spanish and Portuguese Graduate Student Marguerite Morlan published an article entitled "Metalinguistic evaluations of language choice in the linguistic landscape of Catalonia" in the International Journal of Multilingualism. The paper examines language ideologies revealed by locally raised Catalans in their reflections on patterns of language choice in graffiti and similar unauthorized signs in Catalonia’s linguistic landscape.
A tradition in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley, S&P Research Day occurs in the first week of the Spring semester. This year, we gathered for the third annual S&P Research Day to hear our colleagues' presentations on anything from research topics, conference papers, dissertation chapters and other academic or creative works.
It’s easy to forget that the cloud isn’t an amorphous ball of fluff, says UC Berkeley Professor Alex Saum-Pascual — that it is, in fact, physical internet infrastructure that takes many forms in many places across the world.
It’s easy to forget that the cloud isn’t an amorphous ball of fluff, says UC Berkeley Professor Alex Saum-Pascual — that it is, in fact, physical internet infrastructure that takes many forms in many places across the world.
As part of the annual lecture series, the department hosted two talks during the fall semester. Jorge Sanchez Cruz (UCSD) delivered "Black Travesti (Re)Mattering," on a chapter of his book project Aesthetics of Repair, and Urayoán Noel (NYU) gave a lecture/performance on his translations of Wingston González and Nicole Cecilia Delgado.
Professor Nathaniel Wolfson has published Concrete Encoded: Poetry, Design, and the Cybernetic Imaginary in Brazil with Texas University Press. Concrete art and poetry burst onto Brazil's cultural stage in the 1950s, while the country was embarking on a dizzying period of modernization. Bringing together key poets and visual artists alongside less recognized figures, Nathaniel Wolfson shows that concretism was hardly socially inert, as pundits have suggested. Rather, it presciently grappled with an emerging information age that would soon reorganize human relations globally.
Prof. Saum-Pascual performed her poetic work Traceroute Poems - segundo viaje alongside Mario Santamaría at Cultur_ALH, Encuentro Internacional de Cultura Literaria de La Alhambra, Spain. See the full video of the performance here.
Prof. Saum-Pascual performed her poetic work Traceroute Poems - segundo viaje alongside Mario Santamaría at Cultur_ALH, Encuentro Internacional de Cultura Literaria de La Alhambra, Spain. See the full video of the performance here.
On October 10, 2025, the Art of Translation working group, led by Emma Lloyd from the Department of Comparative Literature, hosted a lunchtime gathering with Puerto Rican poet, translator, and educator Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, in conversation about speculative Caribbean poetry and the art of translation. The event, co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, was organized by Coral Murphy Marcos and moderated by Claudia Martínez Rivera, both from the Department of Spanish & Portuguese.
Prof. Estelle Tarica has been appointed a Senior Fellow at the Townsend Center for Humanities for the 2025–26 academic year. Her current research examines the Guatemalan Revolution (1944-1954), a fascinating period of anti-fascist culture and politics that included strong support for the partition of Palestine. Studying this topic has given her new insights into the present moment.
Prof. Estelle Tarica has been appointed a Senior Fellow at the Townsend Center for Humanities for the 2025–26 academic year. Her current research examines the Guatemalan Revolution (1944-1954), a fascinating period of anti-fascist culture and politics that included strong support for the partition of Palestine. Studying this topic has given her new insights into the present moment.
Congratulations to Gabriel Lesser, who began as a postdoctoral fellow at the Writing Center at UC Berkeley! In his dissertation, Hegemonic Humor: Racial Satires, Caricatures, and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Brazil, Lesser analyzes how different ideas of race became embedded in everyday nineteenth-century print entertainment, including math puzzles, fashion columns, illustrated novels, and caricatures in both Mexico and Brazil.
Congratulations to our graduate student Alejandra Decker, who has been awarded the 2025-26 UC Dissertation-Year Fellowship!
Decker's research focuses on 19th-century Latin American and Latinx literatures, science, and technology, with a special emphasis on mining literature and scientific writing in postcolonial Mexico.
The Department of Spanish & Portuguese is pleased to announce that Dr. Jhonni Carr has been awarded The Arts & Humanities Teaching Award in recognition of her extraordinary dedication to undergraduate student teaching.
The Department of Spanish & Portuguese is pleased to announce that Dr. Jhonni Carr has been awarded The Arts & Humanities Teaching Award in recognition of her extraordinary dedication to undergraduate student teaching.
Derek Allen, PhD Candidate in Hispanic Languages & Literatures with emphasis in Luso-Brazilian Studies, received The Center for African Studies' Andrew and Mary Thompson Rocca Fellowship.
The endowment supports student scholars at the advanced graduate level concentrating in African Studies. Derek’s dissertation researches literature and film from Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, and Brazil. His project focuses on novels and films of war and independence struggles and the many aesthetic and political collaborations that came to exist between writers and filmmakers.
Derek Allen, PhD Candidate in Hispanic Languages & Literatures with emphasis in Luso-Brazilian Studies, received The Center for African Studies' Andrew and Mary Thompson Rocca Fellowship.
The endowment supports student scholars at the advanced graduate level concentrating in African Studies. Derek’s dissertation researches literature and film from Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, and Brazil. His project focuses on novels and films of war and independence struggles and the many aesthetic and political collaborations that came to exist between writers and filmmakers.
