Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former Brazilian president and Brown professor-at-large, will give a lecture titled “Brazil: A Latin American Nation?” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, 2007, in MacMillan Hall’s Starr Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former Brazilian president and Brown professor-at-large, will discuss Brazil’s evolving role in Latin American in an address, Wednesday, March 14. “Brazil: A Latin American Nation?” will be delivered at 7 p.m. in MacMillan Hall’s Starr Auditorium, 167 Thayer St. Cardoso's talk  is free and open to the public.

“I hope to help students and the Brown community understand important regional and global issues from the standpoint of a developing country, Brazil,” Cardoso said.

A renowned scholar in sociology and political science, Cardoso is in residence at Brown’s Watson Institute for International Studies through the end of the month. This is Cardoso’s fifth year at Brown, and he has engaged in a range of activities during his tenure. These have included participation in a panel with University President Ruth J. Simmons at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting last September in New York; a debate at the University in October 2005 on the future of Brazil; a talk here in November 2004 titled “A Brazilian Perspective on the U.S. Presidential Election”; and another in October 2003 on “Brazil: The Awakening Giant.” He has also worked on three books published during this time, including a memoir, The Accidental President of Brazil (Public Affairs, 2006).

Fernando Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso is both an accomplished statesman and a distinguished scholar. He was first elected to national office in 1986, as a senator from the state of São Paulo, and two years later helped establish the Social Democratic Party. He served as Brazil’s foreign minister (1992-93) and economy minister (1993) prior to his election as president in 1994. As economy minister and president, he oversaw the development and implementation of an economic stabilization program that controlled inflation, and his policy of reducing government involvement in the economy helped attract foreign investment. He concluded his second presidential term on Jan. 1, 2003.

As a young sociology professor, Cardoso was a vocal opponent of Brazil’s military dictators; he lived in exile from 1964 to 1968. Although he was arrested on his return in 1969 and banned from teaching for a time, he became a prominent and well-respected Latin American sociologist. His scholarly writings include the classic Dependency and Development in Latin America and numerous works in journals of sociology and political economy. Cardoso has served as a visiting professor at academic centers in Europe and the United States and is professor emeritus of political science at the University of São Paulo.

Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call the Office of Media Relations at (401) 863-2476.

######