Marçal de Menezes Paredes researches Angola's liberation, as well as political and intellectual connections between Canada and Africa
Professor Marçal de Menezes Paredes, from the Graduate Program in History and a specialist in contemporary Angolan history, is on sabbatical in the Harriet Tubman Institute for Africa and its Diaspora, York University, Toronto (Canada) as a visiting professor abroad through PUCRS-PrInt (Institutional Project of Internationalization). The professor arrived at the institution in early August to develop research on the archive of the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa, in the context of Angola’s liberation, political and intellectual connections between Canada and Africa, in collaboration with Professor José C. Curto, from the Canadian university.
During his period abroad, Paredes will develop joint projects with the Canadian institution. “In addition to meeting with the Dean of the History Department to present the opportunities offered by our internationalization project, we are already working on an international project proposal with researchers from the Harriet Tubman Institute,” says the professor.
The mission has also served to make arrangements for Professor Curto’s visit to PUCRS next year, when he will teach a graduate course. Discussions are also underway regarding the possibility of PUCRS PhD students going to Toronto for a sandwich doctorate. By the end of 2019, Paredes will have an article published in York University’s Portuguese Studies Review, and some researchers linked to the Harriet Tubman Institute will publish in a dossier organized by the professor.
Paredes participates in The Hidden Matrix of Violence in Modernity: Crisis of Alterity, Moral and Ethics, a cooperation project coordinated by professor Ruth Gauer and linked to the priority theme World in Motion: Individuals and Society. The researcher is also part of the Angola Resgate Group, led by Curto, and the board of the Lusophone Studies Association – York University (LSA).