Brazilian Studies Research Seminar – Professor Vitor Izecksohn

15 Mar 2018

THURSDAY 15 TH   MARCH –  5 PM –  ORB G27AThe Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies and the newly launched  Brazilian Studies Reading Group in UCCare delighted to invite you to theResearch Seminar: Professor Vitor Izecksohn(Associate Professor, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)   War, Elections and the Imperial Council of State: State-Making and Politics during the Triple Alliance War (1865-1870)  THURSDAY 15 TH   MARCH,   at 5 PM   College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences Mary Ryan Meeting Room, ORB G27A     AbstractDuring the Paraguayan War (1864-1870), the Brazilian Empire continued to hold elections at all levels, as mandated by the Constitution, despite wartime stresses around recruitment for the army and navy. An exception to this took place in 1867, during efforts to create a new army corps in the frontier province of Rio Grande do Sul. The Council of State (an influential body advising Emperor Pedro II) recommended canceling elections in the province, an extreme measure taken to ensure that there would be no protests against conscription in the most militarized Brazilian province. In this seminar, In this presentation, based on a new book, I analyze the rationale behind the councilors’ recommendation, and alternative courses of action considering the strains faced by that region during the third year of the campaign against Paraguay. It addresses the political debates about military recruitment from the standpoint of Imperial authorities` impressions. It focuses on their approach to the country’s problems during the worst period of the Paraguayan War. Finally, it  describes the steps taken by the National Guard Commanders to activate the recruitment.  BioVitor Izecksohn is an associate professor at the Graduate Program of Social History at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. He earned his PhD in History by the University of New Hampshire. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University, where he also served as a visiting professor under a Fulbright Fellowship in 2011. He was a fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (New York Historical Society) and at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (Yale University). He was also a fellow at the John Carter Brown Library (2017). He is the author of    Slavery and War in the Americas: Race, Citizenship, and State Building in the United States and Brazil, 1861-1870 (University of Virginia Press, 2014), as well as two earlier books published in Brazil:  A History of the Brazilian Liberal Political Though in the Twentieth Century (1990), and   The Chorus of Disagreement: The Paraguayan War and the Professional Nucleus of the Brazilian Corps of Officers  (2002). He co-authored  Nova História Militar Brasileira (New Brazilian Military History, 2004). These books, along with his chapters and journal articles, engage in renewed debates about the New Brazilian Military History and the process of internationalization in the American Civil War. His current research "Insolvent Nations" analyzes how wartime recruitment refracted political dynamics at local, regional and Imperial levels.