Leonora Souza Paula

Biography

Leonora holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), an M.A. in Literary Studies from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). She specializes in Literary and Cultural Studies, with a focus on intersections of race, gender and spatial representations in contemporary Afro-Brazilian and Latin American literature and culture. Her current research examines the role of Black women writers and spatially segregated artists in transforming representations of urban life in 21st century Brazil.

She is the founding co-director of the Sister Circle Mentoring Program for Women of Color and is an alum of the Human Rights Center Fellowship at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and of the American Council of Learned Societies. Leonora is the co-organizer of the 1st Black Brazilian Women Intellectuals International Conference: Quilombo as Global Black Solidarity in the Past, Present and Future and is a coordinator at the Kilomba Collective of Black Brazilian Women.