MIT students build connections with Black and Indigenous Brazilians to investigate culture and the environment
In January 2024, 20 students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will take part in a three-week Independent Activities Period (IAP) course examining how American and Brazilian Black and Indigenous writers' and artists' art and activism impacts racial justice and environmental issues. The course is designed by senior MIT lecturer Wyn Kelley, who received the 2019 Education Innovation Grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) for its development and implementation.
In January 2024, at the height of Brazil’s summer, a group of 20 MIT undergraduates will arrive in São Paulo, Brazil, for the Independent Activities Period (IAP) course WGS.247/21L.592 (Race, Place, and Modernity in the Americas) jointly offered by the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences’ programs in Women’s and Gender Studies, Literature, and Writing.
Continuing a program developed in 2019 and launched as a special course in 2020, the three-week course offers students opportunities to study how American and Brazilian Black and Indigenous writers, artists, and filmmakers’ art and cultural activism — particularly women’s — can impact racial justice and environmental issues.
The class will visit historical sites, cultural centers, nature reserves, and museums while also engaging in conversations with local scholars, activists, religious leaders, community organizers, and artists.