European Ancestry Predominates in Neuromyelitis Optica and Multiple Sclerosis Patients from Brazil

Background: Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is considered relatively more common in non-Whites, whereas multiple sclerosis (MS) presents a high prevalence rate, particularly in Whites from Western countries populations. However, no study has used ancestry informative markers (AIMs) to estimate the genetic ancestry contribution to NMO patients. Methods: Twelve AIMs were selected based on the large allele frequency differences among European, African, and Amerindian populations, in order to investigate the genetic contribution of each ancestral group in 236 patients with MS and NMO, diagnosed using the McDonald and Wingerchuck criteria, respectively. All 128 MS patients were recruited at the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (MS-RP), Southeastern Brazil, as well as 108 healthy bone marrow donors considered as healthy controls. A total of 108 NMO patients were recruited from five Neurology centers from different Brazilian regions, including Ribeirão Preto (NMO-RP). Principal Findings: European ancestry contribution was higher in MS-RP than in NMO-RP (78.5% vs. 68.7%) patients. In contrast, African ancestry estimates were higher in NMO-RP than in MS-RP (20.5% vs. 12.5%) patients. Moreover, principal component analyses showed that groups of NMO patients from different Brazilian regions were clustered close to the European ancestral population. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that European genetic contribution predominates in NMO and MS patients from Brazil. © 2013 Brum et al.

The invisible blackness of Harryette Mullen's poetry: writing, miscegenation and what remais to be seen

Este ensaio aborda a poética de Harryette Mullen, poetisa afro-americana cuja obra questiona os limites que moldam as expectativas pela inteligibilidade acessível na literatura afro-americana. Os poemas de Mullen exploram as bordas da inteligibilidade, avançando para além das expectativas por uma forma visível/ Rev. Let., São Paulo, v.52, n.1, p.101-120, jan./jun. 2012. 119 inteligível de linguagem que abarcaria a experiência da negritude. Argumenta-se que a escrita na poesia de Mullen funciona como um processo de miscigenação ao jogar com a ilegibilidade da negritude, para além de uma linha visível de distinção entre o que é ou que deveria ser considerado como parte apropriada da negritude, o que possibilita novas formas de reflexão sobre a poesia como um instrumento politicamente significativo para se repensar o papel da poetisa e do poeta negros no espaço da diáspora negra.

Ensino de história e cultura afro-brasileira: uma análise do caderno do professor de história do ensino médio público paulista

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC

A personagem Bigger Thomas na obra de Richard Wright e a construção de identidade afro-americana

This paper analyzes the character Bigger Thomas Native Son’s American novel published in 1940 by African-American author Richard Wright. Through this character we try to study more the post-slavery racial issue in a country where racial segregation was legally sustained and how this issue was reflected in society and identity formation of their native sons African-American

The Role of the (In)visible and the Secret in the Translation of Harryette Mullen s Muse & Drudge

This paper, based on Jacques Derrida’s thoughts in Des Tours of Babel, addresses the issue regarding the (in)visible in translation, by arguing that the latter, beyond the traditional conception of communication, produces a complex set of relations between the visible and the invisible, which highlights the values of the non-dit and the secret that take place in their relation to interpretation. This line of thought underpins the discussion of my translation of two poems from Muse & Drudge (1995), by the African-American poet Harryette Mullen, whose dense poetry displays un(expected) possibilities of meanings and associations that proliferate in translation. It is argued that every act of translation entails a relationship between that which is translated (and made visible or intelligible through this act) and that which remains invisible and secret by resisting a definitive translation, which, as such, requires further interpretations in search for intelligibility (or “visibility”). We analyze the extent to which such relation between the visible and the invisible takes part in the translation of the notion of blackness raised by Mullen’s poems and how her translated poetry dialogues with issues of reception in Brazilian culture.

Dilemas na tradução de Muse & Drudge (Musa E Mula), de Harryette Mullen: negritude, dissonância e miscigenação

This paper aims to discuss a project of translating part of the work Muse & Drudge, by the award-winning African-American poet Harryette Mullen, into Brazilian Portuguese, with focus on a single poem. In Muse & Drudge Mullen combines cultural critique with humor, lyricism and punning, which has unfolded the frontiers between cultural and racial identity, and has put into question the opposition between popular and high culture. This work analyzes to which extent the proposed translation produces a new set of intertextual relations that might culminate in “unexpected” meanings. It is a goal to understand how the effects of such “unexpected” meanings reveal the “encounter” between the so-called racial “black/white” dichotomy, predominant in the US culture, and the notion of “miscegenation” and “racial democracy” in Brazil.

A tradução de Invisible Man, de Ralph Ellison: o jogo entre racialidade e integracionismo

Relating the surface of a translated text to discourse is one of the focuses in the connection between Translation Studies and African- -American literature. In this respect, “Invisible Man”, by Ralph Ellison, and its Brazilian translation, by Márcia Serra, present themselves as material for analyzing contexts which evoke a sense of community and racial identity. Therefore, this paper centers precisely upon nuances in meaning of the linguistic displays of bonding and race. It could be noticed that these aspects were less marked in the translation, whereas the integrationist project featured in the novel was to a certain extent rewritten in words that called forth a sense of racial dichotomy. Thus, the translation displays at once the non-racialized perspective peculiar to the Brazilian view of race and assumptions in regard to the perspective of the African-American Other on race relations.

The Invisible Blackness of Harryette Mullen's Poetry: Writing, Miscegenation, and What Remains to Be Seen

This essay addresses the poetics of Harryette Mullen, an awarded African-American female poet whose work questions the boundaries that shape the expectations for accessible intelligibility in African-American literature. Mullen’s poems skirt the edges of intelligibility by going beyond the expectations for a visible/intelligible form of language that would embrace the experience of blackness. I argue that writing in Mullen’s poetry works as process of miscegenation by playing on the illegibility of blackness, beyond a visible line of distinction between what is or should be considered part of blackness itself, which engages new forms of reflection on poetry as a politically meaningful tool for rethinking the role of the black (female) poet within the black diaspora.

A poesia de Harryette Mullen e a (des)construção da mulher e de suas fronteiras

Harryette Mullen is a contemporary African-American poet whose work has been increasingly analyzed and commented upon in American literary circles. Along her poetic career, one can identify the development of a complex relationship with the construction of the (black) female identity. Early in her career such construction involved the affirmation of a safer, if not “truthful” locus that could encompass the meaning of the female existence, which has ultimately come to develop a deconstruction, in her current poetry, of any centrality or essentiality in the search for a an authentic female identity. Translations of her poems will be presented in order to investigate their implication for understanding the fragmented body of the contemporary woman.

O papel da tradução na construção da identidade da literatura afro-americana no Brasill

This paper discusses the role of translation in the construction of the identity of African-American literature in Brazil, by considering the relations between the Brazilian sociocultural context, infl uenced by biological and cultural miscegenation, and the particular way that the literary criticism represented by essays and translations of the Brazilian critic Sergio Milliet, published in between the 40’s and 60’s, approaches AfricanAmerican poetry, with special focus on Langston Hughes’ poems. In this paper, differences between Brazilian and American racial contexts are brought into light in regard to the discourses on miscegenation and race. It is discussed the extent to which Sergio Milliet developed a racialized identity for African-American poetry in his essays, which, however, was rebuilt through translation, in his anthology Obras Primas da Poesia Universal, with a less racialized perspective so that African-American aesthetics could sound less dissonant and regional and more inclined towards the principle of universality which characterizes the anthology composed of renowned foreign and Brazilian poets.

Quando gestos não políticos são políticos: a tradução brasileira de Giovanni's Room, de James Baldwin, e a questão da homossexualidade

This work is part of a research project on the role of translations of African-American literature in Brazil and their relation to issues of identity, discourse and aesthetics. It analyzes the translation, by Affonso Blacheyre, of Giovanni's room (1956), by James Baldwin, which was published in 1967 in Brazil. Baldwin is revered for his role in the Civil Rights Movement, having produced works that portray the contradictions of a democratic, but, at the same time, racist society. Giovanni's room was first rejected by his publisher for addressing homosexuality. The text displayed on the book flaps of the translation praises Baldwin's "work with language", in contrast to his anti-racism in other works. The praise of aesthetics of Giovanni's room is noteworthy, in contrast with the absence of any remarks on its critique of the marginalization of homosexuality. The focus on the aesthetics of the work corresponded to characters speaking a more formal register in the translation. Discourses on identity strengthening were less apparent in the 60s in Brazil in comparison to nowadays. The emphasis on aesthetics represented a seemingly "non-political" gesture that made it less shocking in the context of military dictatorship prevalent in the country at the time.

Their Eyes Were Watching God: reflexos de raça e gênero na (re) definição do Buildungsroman

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Mais ou menos negra? Questões de negritude, tradução e a poesia de Harryette Mullen

This paper addresses issues regarding my translation of selected poems by Harryette Mullen, a rising African-American contemporary poet, whose dense poetry works on the black oral tradition, the experimentalism of writing, the (African-American) pop music, in addition to delving into issues such as the representation of (black) female sexuality. One of the complex aspects of her poetry is the notion of miscegenation, conceived as an aesthetic argument and as a constitutive condition of the identity of multiracial Americans. This concept establishes a textuality that questions the accessible intelligibility generally expected from black American poetry, insofar as a mosaic of dissonant voices are brought to light in her text, which makes it difficult to categorize. In Brazil, especially among politically engaged Afro-Brazilians, there has been criticism towards the praise of miscegenation, since the latter has been considered to support of the myth of racial democracy. Building on these aspects, we investigate the extent to which it is a challenge to translate her poetry – based on miscegenation and hybridity as aesthetic constructs – especially when taking into account the discursive locus of readers identified with an Afro-Brazilian aesthetic, particularly critical of miscegenation. From the point of view of translation, we evaluate the extent to which her poetry could be read by the predominant cultural discourse in Brazil, inclined to favor miscegenation as an integral concept of national identity, as a seductively experimental poetry. In view of this, one wonders whether this perspective makes hers poetry “less black” for Afro-Brazilian literary standards.

Relationship between race and clinical characteristics, extent of disease, and response to chemotherapy in patients with low-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia

Objective. To evaluate the potential effects of race on clinical characteristics, extent of disease, and response to chemotherapy in women with postmolar low-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN).Methods. This non-concurrent cohort study was undertaken including patients with FIGO-defined postmolar low-risk GTN treated with comparable doses and schedules of chemotherapy at the New England Trophoblastic Disease Center (NETDC) between 1973 and 2012. Racial groups investigated included whites, African American and Asians. Information on patient characteristics and response to chemotherapy (need for second line chemotherapy, reason for changing to an alternative chemotherapy, number of cycles/regimens, need for combination chemotherapy, and time to hCG remission) was obtained.Results. Of 316 women, 274 (86.7%) were white, 19 (6%) African American, and 23 (7.3%) Asian. African Americans were significantly younger than white and Asian women (p = 0.008). Disease presentation, and extent of disease, including antecedent molar histology, median time to persistence, median hCG level at persistence, rate of D&C at persistence, presence of metastatic disease, and FIGO stage and risk score were similar among races. Need for second line chemotherapy (p = 0.023), and median number of regimens (p = 0.035) were greater in Asian women than in other races.Conclusions. Low-risk GTN was more aggressive in Asian women, who were significantly more likely to need second line chemotherapy and a higher number of chemotherapy regimens to achieve complete remission than women of African American and Asian descent. Further studies involving racial differences related to clinical, biological and environmental characteristics are needed. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Dorothy Perry Thompson Papers - Accession 1352

Dr. Dorothy Perry Thompson was a Winthrop professor of English and an accomplished poet and writer. As well as teaching in the English Department, Dr. Thompson also coordinated the African American Studies program which she helped found. The Dorothy Perry Thompson Papers consists of her poems and writings, drafts, research, notes, contract agreements, awards and certificates, speaking engagement flyers and records, thank you letters, and promotion and tenure records.