Sara Brandellero is a University Lecturer in Brazilian Literature and Culture at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). Her teaching and research focus on Brazil, also in global perspective, especially in its connections with the Portuguese-speaking world, Europe and Latin America. She also teaches in the fields of cultural studies, cultural theory, literary and films studies more broadly.

More information about Sara Brandellero

Sara Brandellero is Assistant Professor at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), where she has been based since 2011.  She is currently Project Leader on the HERA-funded project Night Spaces: migration, culture and integration in Europe (NITE), 2019-22, and was Fellow of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute of Advanced Studies in Germany (2021).

Fields of interest

• Brazilian literature
• Culture and film; Literatures
• Film and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world
• Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous cultures
• Migration and diaspora; space
• Heritage and agency
• The urban night
• Landscape
• Culture, the arts, society and democracy
• Interculturality and postcoloniality

Research

My research focuses on Brazilian literature and culture, also in global perspective. This has entailed work on 20^th- and 21^st-century Brazilian literature, film and culture as well as transnational projects on cultural exchanges between Latin America, Africa and Europe. My completed projects and publications have investigated experiences and narratives of mobility, migration and diasporas, including diasporic communities of African/Latin American heritage in Europe; the urban night and public spaces in relation to heritage, belonging, well-being and social justice. I am inspired by the multifarious interactions between the arts and society, with a special interest in questions of cultural advocacy, democracy, and the role of the arts in galvanizing social change, considered in intersectional and postcolonial frameworks. My transdisciplinary research combines a cultural analysis focus with creative knowledge co-production methodologies. Between 2019-2022, I led the collaborative European research project Night Spaces: migration, culture and integration in Europe (NITE), funded by EU Commission and HERA. I will lead a new Horizon Europe collaborative project #DemocracyinAction: Grassroots Culture, Arts and Cultural Spaces for Political Participation and Expression Online and Offline in a Resilient Europe (co-lead Dr Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, Leiden). This transdisciplinary project investigates the role of grassroots arts and cultural advocacy for democracy through case studies across Europe as well as collaborations in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Teaching activities

Brazilian and Lusophone literature and visual cultures, Latin American culture, narratives of migration and urban space, representations of the urban night. 

Curriculum vitae

I hold a BA in Hispanic Studies from the University of Cardiff, an MA in Brazilian Literature from the University of Brasília and a DPhil in Portuguese (Brazilian Literature) from the University of Oxford. Prior to joining Leiden, I held lectureships at the University of Oxford, where I was also Senior Research Associate at the Oxford Centre for Brazilian Studies, and at the University of Leeds (UK). I joined Leiden University in September 2011. I am affiliated to the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) and am a member of the Leiden Centre for Indigenous Americas Studies (CIAS).

I have held Visiting Professorships at the PUC-Rio University (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) 2023; University of São Paulo (UNESP/Araraquara, Brazil), 2015, and at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (Brazil, 2014). I am a Research Fellow Laureate of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute of Advanced Studies in Germany (2021), with a project on migration and the urban night.  Between 2017-22, I acted as Co-Chair and Chair of the BA, MA and ResMA programmes in Latin American Studies at Leiden.

Founding member and co-leader of REBRAC (European Network of Brazilianists working in Cultural Analysis). Founded in 2014 with Prof. S. Dennison (Leeds) and Dr. T. Holmes (Queen’s Belfast).  https://rebrac.net/page/1/

Member International Advisory Board of HERA project Public Transport as Public Space (2019-22).

I regularly act as reviewer for different publishers, journals and international funding bodies.

PhD Supervision
Completed:
Seger Kersbergen – Nightlife in the Cabo Verdean Diaspora: The Case of Rotterdam City (2023). Promotor Prof. F.W. Korsten, co-promotor with Dr K. Krakowska Rodrigues
Ana Cardozo de Souza - Pedagogy in literary 'postcards' João do Rio in São Paulo (1905-1915)’ Promotor: Prof. F.W. Korsten.

Current PhDs
Francianne dos Santos Velho. On women’s narratives of domestic labour in Brazil and the Netherlands. Promotor Prof. S. Lammes.
Gislene Trindade. On contemporary Indigenous women writing in Brazil. Promotor Prof. F.W. Korsten.
Marcos Neto de Cordova. On Brazilian artist Emicida. Promotor Prof. F.W. Korsten, co-promotor Dr Y. Horsman.

Grants and awards

2025-28 Project Leader of Horizon Europe project #DemocracyinAction: Grassroots Culture, Arts and Cultural Spaces for Political Participation and Expression Online and Offline in a Resilient Europe. This is a project co-led with my colleague Dr Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues (Leiden).
Funding: Horizon Europe (grant number 101178843)

#DemocracyinAction studies arts and culture-based grassroots organizations in physical spaces and their social media and metaverse dimensions, to understand their critical potential in fostering democracy. #DemocracyinAction identifies solutions for increasing meaningful political expression and participation in four key areas of grassroots social transformation of untapped potential: 1) nightivism (urban nighttime cultural life for political engagement); 2) women’s rights mobilization; 3) racial and ethnic civic participation through cultural expression; 4) youth activism and civic education. The project’s research strategy aligns with the EU’s enshrined principle of subsidiarity, to deliver new insights on how bottom-up arts and culture can channel inclusive political expression and advance societal well-being at a time when democracy faces unprecedented challenges.

2019-22 Project Leader of the European collaborative project Night Spaces: migration, culture and integration in Europe (NITE), funded by the EU Commission and the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA).  This transdisciplinary project brought together the Universities of Leiden, UCL, Humboldt/Leuphana, Aarhus and Limerick, and worked in partnership with a number of stakeholders across Europe from as diverse fields as art activism, nighttime public policy, in studying public spaces at night associated with diverse migrant communities in 8 European cities.

Feb-July 2021 Research Fellowship at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute of Advanced Studies in Germany. Project title Night Narratives of Migration in the Netherlands. Connected to the NITE project research. Acknowledging migration as a key and often polarizing topic in current policy, political and public debates, this project addressed the issue by approaching ‘night spaces’ (Williams 2008) as culturally mediated and socially produced, and important sites of crisis and regeneration, memory and heritage, community solidarity and growth, that can open new spaces of belonging and intercultural understanding. I combined ethnographic fieldwork, participatory research methods and a cultural analysis approach to illuminate traditionally overlooked stories played out in the key migration centres of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, towards a better understanding of multifaceted life experiences in today’s urban centres.

2023- Leiden Coordinator of Research Collaboration with the PUC University in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). International research programme on ‘Contemporary Scenarios in Image and Visual Cultures’ (Prof. K.E. Schollhammer/PUC project leader).  Exploring questions of arts in society, social dynamics, agency and spatial politics. Network includes institutions in the US, Germany, Denmark, Argentina, Portugal, the Netherlands (Leiden). Funded by Brazilian funding agency CAPES.

Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA), to organize a graduate seminar on ‘Night Cultures: (Il)legalities and the Politics of Life after Dark’. Leiden, 20-22 January 2016. With Prof. FW Korsten (Leiden).

Teaching Innovation Grant, Leiden University Faculty of Humanities, 2020.

Institute of Latin American Studies (Uni. of London) conference fund, for the organization of launch conference of the European Network of Brazilianists Working in Cultural Analysis (REBRAC) (25 Sept.2015)

Brazilian Studies Programme, Oxford: for the org. of the symposium ‘Journeys of (Self)Discovery in Brazilian Cinema (2008).

Merit Award (Academic Staff), Humanities Division, Oxford (2008)          

Excellence in Teaching Award, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford (2006)

Selected publications

Brandellero, Sara, Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues and Derek Pardue (eds). Urban Nightlife and Contested Spaces: Cultural Encounters After Dusk. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. (Forthcoming 16-12-2024)

Brandellero, Sara, Derek Pardue and Georg Wink (eds). Living (Il)legalities in Brazil: Practices, Narratives and Institutions in a Country on the Edge (Routledge, 2020).

Brandellero, Sara, Lúcia Villares (eds). Graciliano Ramos and the Making of Modern Brazil: Memory, Politics and Identities. (University of Wales Press, 2017).

Brandellero, Sara (ed). The Brazilian Road Movie: Journeys of (Self)Discovery (University of Wales Press, 2013).

Brandellero, Sara. On a Knife-Edge: The Poetry of João Cabral de Melo Neto (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Publications