New Visiting Researchers at CIGS
We are delighted to welcome two visiting scholars to CIGS’ community.
Professor Benito Bisso Schmidt from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) will be a visiting scholar at CIGS between August and October. He is currently working on a project entitled “LGBTQIA+ Collections: Debates, Projects and Impasses – a comparison between English and Brazilian realities” - funded by CAPES, the major scientific institution in Brazil. His research “aims to examine how various social agents, especially intellectuals, public authorities, and social movements, have related to LGBTQIA+ heritage, notably with the archive’s collections produced by these communities. During my visit to Leeds, I will focus on LGTBIQ+ archival projects and museums in the UK by focusing on the cities of Manchester and Leeds.”
We are also very excited to welcome Yuri Fraccaroli, who is a PhD Student in the Department of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Yuri has been awarded the prestigious Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Innovation Fellowship to work on this project, “Archivo vivo! An Ethnography of the Archive: Latin American Sex and Gender Community Archives” and will be visiting Leeds between September and December. Their project focuses on community queer and trans archival projects in Latin America.
Short Bios
Benito Bisso Schmidt is a full professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre / Brazil). He was president of the National History Association – ANPUH-Brazil between 2011 and 2013. He currently coordinates Close – Reference Center for LGBTQIA + History in Rio Grande do Sul. He was a visiting professor at universities in France, the United States and Uruguay. His current research themes are: LGBTQIA+ memorial sites and emotions (especially loneliness) in letters sent to the Brazilian LGBTQIA+ movement in the 1990s.
Contact details: benitobs@terra.com.br
Yuri (they/them) is a PhD Student at the Feminist Studies Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, currently working as a Teaching Assistant within the department. Currently, they are one of the 2024/25 ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Innovation Fellows with the project Archivo vivo! An Ethnography of the Archive: Latin American Sex and Gender Community Archives.
Their research interests are situated in the following areas: Gender and Sexuality studies, Queer/Trans of Color Critique, Latin American Studies, Critical Race Theory and Black Studies. In addition to their academic roles, Yuri is an active member of Acervo Bajubá, an LGBT+ community archive in São Paulo. Within this vibrant community, they function as an educator, artist, and researcher, harnessing various modes of expression and inquiry to advance the archive's mission. Yuri's artistic endeavors include charcoal drawing, and they actively explore alternative research methodologies involving the arts and creative writing. They have published in peer-reviewed journals like Gender and Development, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Homocultura, Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, Psicologia Política, and book chapters in anthologies like História do Movimento LGBT no Brasil.
Contact details: fraccaroli@ucsb.edu