Luciano Tosta

Luciano Tosta
  • Director, Center for Global & International Studies
  • Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
  • RESEARCH INTEREST: Brazil's transnational movements in literature, music, & cinema
  • REGION: Brazil and other Lusophone countries

Contact Info

Biography —

Luciano Tosta has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, and Master's degrees in Comparative Literature and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies from Brown University. Dr. Tosta also has a Master's degree in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he was a Fulbright scholar. Prof. Tosta did his undergraduate studies at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, where he earned a Bachelor degree and a Licenciatura in English. Before joining the faculty at the University of Kansas, he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his graduate studies at Brown, Dr. Tosta taught at Harvard University, Boston University, and Rhode Island College. He received Harvard University's Certificate of Distinction and Excellence in Teaching, and featured on the University of Illinois's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent. He was awarded the University of Kansas Department of Spanish and Portuguese 2016-2017 Jessie Marie Senor Cramer and Ann Cramer Root Faculty Award in recognition of meritorious teaching and research. In Brazil, he taught at the Federal and State Universities of Bahia. His publications on Brazilian and Brazilian-American literature, film, and music have appeared in several journals and as book chapters in the United States, Brazil, Canada, and England. Journals include Afro-Hispanic Review, Revista Iberoamericana, Luso-Brazilian Review, Letras de Hoje, Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, Chasqui, Romance Notes, Gávea-Brown, Estudos Portugueses e Africanos, and Hispania. Dr. Tosta also co-edited the Luso-American Literature: Writings by Portuguese-speaking Authors in North America (Rutgers UP, 2011) and Brazil (ABC/CLIO, 2016). His book Confluence Narratives: Ethnicity, History, and Nation Making in the Americas was published with Bucknell University Press in 2016. It won the 2016 Vice Chancellor for Research Book Publication Award at the University of Kansas. He is currently working on a second book manuscript tentatively entitled Brazilian American Literature and U.S. Brazilian Literature: Transamerican Politics, Postcolonial Readings.

Research —

My current research is in the field of hemispheric American studies. I am particularly interested in Brazil's transnational movements in fiction and art in general. The study of the nation, its definitions and configurations, movements, and spaces, are at the core of my work. My research is theoretically grounded on the fields of postcolonial, ethnic, and subaltern studies. Other areas on which I have focused my work are the relationship between fiction and history, the study of representations of the city in literature and film, and the sublime.

Research interests:

  • Brazilian literature, music, and cinema
  • Inter-American literature
  • transnational studies
  • the nation
  • ethnic literatures and cultures of the Americas
  • (particularly Afro-Brazilian, African American, and Afro Latin American, Brazilian-American, and Lat
  • postcolonial literatures
  • fiction and history
  • the sublime.

Teaching —

My teaching interests include 19th and 20th Century Brazilian literature, Brazilian culture (especially cinema and music), the ethnic literatures and cultures of the Americas (particularly Afro-Brazilian, African American, and Afro Latin American, Brazilian-American, and Latina/o), Contemporary Portuguese Literature, and literary and critical theory.

Teaching interests:

  • 19th and 20th century Brazilian literature
  • Brazilian-American literature
  • contemporary Portuguese literature
  • ethnic literatures of the Americas.

Selected Publications —

Tosta, Antonio. “Milton Hatoum: Interweaving the Local and the Global.” Critical Insights-Latin American Fiction, Salem University Press, 2017, pp. 134–49.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. Confluence Narratives: Ethnicity, History, and Nation-Making in the Americas. Bucknell University Press, 2016.
Tosta, Antonio. “Immigration, Transnationalism, and Transmigration in Grandma Has a Video Camera.” Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, vol. 1, no. 1, Indiana University, 2016, pp. 74–92.
Tosta, Antonio Luciano, and Eduardo de Faria Coutinho. “Brazil - Latin America in Focus.” ABC - CLIO / Greenwood (Publisher), ABC - CLIO / Greenwood (Publisher), 2015.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Fictional and Everyday Violence:  Brazilian Audience as an Interpretive Community of Brazilian Cinema.” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, no. 38/1, The Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2013, pp. 17–34.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “The Other as Self or Other? ‘Latinidade’ and the Politics of Identification in Brazuca Novels.” Gávea-Brown, vol. XXXIV–XXXV, no. 2012–2013, 2012, pp. 301–22.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano, and Robert H. Moser, editors. Luso-American Literature: Writings by Portuguese-Speaking Authors in North America. Rutgers University Press, 2011.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Lyrics and Voice: Resistance and Citizenship in the Songs of Ilê Aiyê and Olodum.” Afro-Hispanic Review , vol. 29, no. 2, Vanderbilt University, 2011, pp. 175–94.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Modern  and  Postcolonial?  Oswald  de  Andrade’s  Antropofagia  and  the  Politics  of  Labeling.” Romance Notes, vol. 51, no. 2, 2011, pp. 217–26.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Scribere Est Agere Ou O Direito Ao Grito: O Intelectual Oprimido e a Hora Do Subalterno Em A Hora Da Estrela.” Revista Iberoamericana., vol. 75, no. 226, 2009, pp. 243–60.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “American Dream, Jeitinho Brasileiro: On the  Crossroads of Cultural Identities in Brazilian-American Literature.” Companion to Latino Literature in the United States, edited by Carlota Caulfield and Darién Davis, Boydell & Brewer, 2007, pp. 140–57.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Is There a Brazilian-American Cinema?  Aesthetics and Identity in A Fronteira and Nailed.” The Other Latinos: Central and South Americans in the United States, edited by José  Antonio Mazzotti and José  Luis Falconi, Harvard University Press, 2007, pp. 257–84.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Uma In(Ter)Venção Da Memória: A Universalização Do Particular Na Poesia Histórica de Cora Coralina.” Cora Coralina: Celebração Da Volta, edited by Goiândira Ortiz Camargo and Darcy Denófrio, Cânone, 2006, pp. 15–35.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Between Heaven and Hell:  Perceptions of Brazil and the United States in Brazuca Literature.” HISPANIA , vol. 88, no. 4, Nov. 2005, pp. 713–25.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Além de Textos e Contextos: Língua Estrangeira, Poesia e Consciência Cultural Crítica.” Recortes Interculturais Na Sala de Aula de Línguas Estrangeiras, edited by Kátia Mota and Denise Scheyerl, EDUFBA (Federal University of Bahia Press), 2004, pp. 107–41.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Latino, Eu? The Paradoxical Interplay of Identity in Brazuca Literature.” HISPANIA, vol. 87, no. 3, Aug. 2004, pp. 576–85.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Machado de Assis: A Obra Entreaberta.” Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 41, no. 1, May 2004, pp. 37–55.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Exchanging Glances: The Streetcar, Modernity, and the Metropolis in Brazilian Literature.” Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana, vol. 32, no. 2, Oct. 2003, pp. 35–52.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Murmúrios Textuais, Históricos e Pósmodernos Em A Costa Dos Murmúrios.” EPA. Estudos Portugueses e Africanos, vol. 41, 2003, pp. 71–87.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “O ‘Sublime’ Sertão Em O Sertanejo, Os Sertões e Grande Sertão: Veredas.” Letras de Hoje, vol. 36, no. 1, Mar. 2001, pp. 7–26.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Laugh and Learn: Thinking Over the Funny Teacher Myth.” English Teaching Forum, vol. 39, no. 1, Jan. 2001, pp. 26–29.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. “Poetry? It’s Worth a Try!” English Teaching Forum, vol. 34, no. 3–4, 1996, pp. 62–63.
Tosta, Antonio Luciano, and Robert Moser, editors. Capoeira and Globalization: Interdisciplinary Studies of an Afro-Brazilian Cultural Form.
de Andrade Tosta, Antonio Luciano. Palimpsestic Time: Brazilian American Literature, U.S. Brazilian Literature and the Adherence to Coloniality.

Awards & Honors —

Vice Chancellor for Research Book Publication Award
The University of Kansas
2016
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent
2005 - 2012
Brown University Joukovsky Dissertation Fellowship
2003 - 2004
Harvard University Certificate of Distinction and Excellence in Teaching
2002 - 2004
Brown University Fellowship
1999 - 2000
Fulbright Fellowship
State University of New York at Buffalo
1997 - 1999
2016-2017 Jessie Marie Senor Cramer and Ann Cramer Root Faculty Award
The University of Kansas Department of Spanish and Portuguese
2017 - Present