Erica Dantas Brasil (1969–2022)

Abstract

Erica Dantas Brasil (1969–2022) Adam Sharman Language students have very particular expectations of teachers who are from the country whose language they’re studying. As far as students are concerned, such teachers don’t just teach the country’s language; they represent the country. They are ambassadors. In Erica’s case, she didn’t represent a bit of the country; she was the entire country. It was official, it was her name. She was Erica Dantas Brasil. And what a job she did being Brazil in Nottingham for more than twenty years, first under the umbrella of the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (SPLAS), and latterly under that of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures. Erica was born in the Brazilian Atlantic port city of Fortaleza in 1969, that is, at the height of the military dictatorship. Her family then moved from the northeast to the south of Brazil in the early 1970s as part of that wave of mass migration to the cities. She was educated principally in São Paulo, where she obtained a BSc in Psychology at the Catholic University, in 1992. In 1994, she completed an MA in Psychology at the State University of São Paulo. Then, in 1998, she won an award from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to do an MA in Social Work in the School of Law and Social Sciences here at the University of Nottingham, which she completed in 1999. A year later, she won a scholarship to do a PhD in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (i.e. SPLAS) in Nottingham. The thesis, which was on Foster Care, was awarded in 2010. The dates tell a story. It was the practice in SPLAS in those days to give PhD students a fees waiver in return for some teaching. Erica was thus a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Portuguese Studies for the first four years of her PhD, before becoming the full-time co-ordinator of the Portuguese language programme in 2004. In other words, she held down a full-time teaching position while doing her thesis. As Coordinator of Portuguese Language, she built a formidable team, training and mentoring colleagues; she developed on-line language exchanges between Nottingham students and students in Brazil; and she dedicated herself to undergraduates with passion and patience. In 2021, her dedication and talent [End Page v] were recognized with a Lord Dearing Award for Excellence in Teaching. She set up internships for our students with a Translation and Interpreting company in São Paulo, and helped establish placements in two British Council partner international language schools in Brazil. In Argentina, she negotiated training for students in the area of advocacy with RELAF, an International NGO dedicated to children’s rights on whose Consultative Committee she sat. Erica was an active researcher. She presented her work in the field of Children’s Rights in Latin America at international conferences. She published articles, book chapters and translations. And she became co-researcher on a project in the History Department of the Federal University Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, funded by the Brazilian Funding Agency, a project that entailed interviewing women who had been involved in armed struggle during the Brazilian dictatorship of the 1960s and ’70s. Beyond SPLAS and the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, Erica served the University on high-level delegations to Latin America. She was a member of the University’s Latin American Regional Advisory Network, with responsibility for fostering collaborations with Brazilian institutions. And in recognition of her outstanding contribution, Erica was promoted to Assistant Professor in Portuguese in 2018. But even without all the achievements outlined above, which include ongoing active participation in Nottingham’s vibrant Brazilian community, it would be enough to single out Erica’s role at the heart of Lusophone Studies in the University. For more than two decades, she helped inculcate in countless undergraduate students a profound love for all things Portuguese and Brazilian. She more than lived up to her name. Erica Dantas Brasil passed away in July 2022, and is much missed by friends, family and colleagues in the UK, Brazil and beyond. [End Page vi] Adam Sharman Professor...