Bonnie S. Wasserman earned her doctorate in Portuguese with a minor in African Languages and Literatures from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999. She holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and a BA in Ibero-American Studies and Portuguese from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Wasserman is the author of three books: Metaphors of Oppression in Lusophone Historical Drama (Peter Lang, 2003 ), Cinema for Portuguese Conversation (Hackett, 2011 ), and Contemporary Afro-Brazil: A Multidisciplinary Anthology (Cognella Academic Publishing, 2018). Dr. Wasserman is a two-time Fulbright Scholarship Award recipient (Portugal, 1994-95; Barbados, 2011). Her research interests include Sephardic and Caribbean Studies. Dr. Wasserman is currently completing a monograph on the Contemporary Afro-Caribbean Novel.
Wasserman, Bonnie S
Assistant Professor
This course introduces students to the origins and emergence of Afro-Brazilians, peoples of African descent in Brazil, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Principle topics of discussion will be drawn from areas of history, philosophy, political economy, literature, the arts, religion, culture, and society.
This course is designed to illumine the political economy of the African American community in the United States, with special attention to issues of race, politics, class and gender. Major themes in the course will focus on the struggles of African American people for justice from the period of reconstruction through the civil rights and post-civil rights eras. The question of Black political organizing and institution building both within and outside the dominant structures of the U.S. political economy will be discussed throughout the course.