About

Rodrigo Lopes de Barros is a cultural critic, filmmaker, and writer. He has a BA in Law and an MA in Literary Theory from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, the latter with a fellowship from CNPQ (the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development). He received a PhD in Hispanic Literature from The University of Texas at Austin with work in the fields of Cuban and Brazilian cultures. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo with a fellowship from FAPESP and was invited to visiting positions at Harvard University and the Federal University of Espírito Santo. His scholarly interests include the relationship between ethnography and literature, the avant-garde cinema and contemporary art in Cuba and Brazil, and the relationship between the arts and national histories.

Lopes de Barros directed the documentary Chacal: Forbidden to Write Poetry(Chacal: Proibido Fazer Poesia), for which he received the Award of Merit in Film from the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). He also directed the hybrid Literary Ménage: An Investigation into the Writing of Jacques Fux (Ménage Literário: Uma Investigação sobre a Escrita de Jacques Fux), which was published as a trilingual book/DVD (Relicário Edições: 2020), and the fiction short film The Body (O Corpo).

Lopes de Barros’ essays on Brazilian and Cuban cultures have appeared as chapters of books and journal articles in places like Afterimage, Comparative Literature Studies, and Alea: Estudos Neolatinos. He co-edited the book Ruinologias: Ensaios Sobre Destroços do Presente (EdUFSC: 2016) and his short stories have been published in literary magazines. As a literary writer, he was among the winners of “Cultural Contest ‘Caderno 2’ in the 450 Years of São Paulo” by the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo. As a press editor, he co-organized the publication of contemporary intellectuals into Portuguese through Editora Cultura e Barbárie, which he co-founded.