The Kenneth Maxwell Thesis Prize in Brazilian Studies was awarded for the first time in the Spring of 2005, and was established to recognize the best Harvard College senior thesis on a subject related to Brazil. Candidates may be nominated by their department/concentration/instructional committee, or candidates may nominate their own theses. This annual prize is funded by a gift to DRCLAS from Professor Kenneth Maxwell. The winner is determined in late May and announced at the DRCLAS Certificate Ceremony during Commencement Week. The prize carries a monetary award of $500.

2008-2009 Prize Recipient
» Hannah Beth Catabia for "Brazilian Immigrant Participation in the Massachusetts Economy"

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2007-2008 Prize Recipient
» Gregory Scruggs for "Reading Space and Place between Morro and Asfalto: An itinerary through the Contemporary Zona Zul :city Rio de Janeiro"

2006-2007 Prize Recipient
» Kavita Shishir Shah for “Experiments with Transnationalism: Constructing Diaspora in The Bloco-Afro Malê Debalê”

Introduction: Music in the Black Atlantic—the transnational community of African-descended peoples dispersed across the Atlantic Ocean—carries with it a specific set of notions about its producers and its content. The question of how blackness can be defined within art—in the case of music, who is supposed to play it, who is allowed to package it, what its lyrics must speak of, and what its harmonic and rhythmic structures should look like—is invariably conflated with ideas about the African diaspora, race as identity, and categories of belonging ranging from the Afrocentric to the cosmopolitan. It is inevitable, therefore, that such a cultural product like Black Atlantic Music be marked by a multiplicity of meanings and manipulations, especially where “black music” today represents not only a controversy over roots, but also a powerful marketing tool in the increasingly popular genre of world music…

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2005-2006 Prize Recipient

» Elisabeth Austin Poorman for “The Hope of Redemption: Science, Coercion, and the Leper Colonies of Brazil”

ABSTRACT : This thesis explores the rationale behind leper colonies in Brazil and explains why most of them were built between 1934 to 1945. Through an analysis of leprosy control before 1930, this thesis shows that the knowledge of leprosy, political importance of disease control, and options available to public health officials prevented the government from isolating lepers. During this same period, Brazil's scientific community began to organize and participate more actively in political changes. These scientists viewed leprosy isolation as an important step in legitimizing their own place and Brazil's in the international community. After Getúlio Vargas's rise to power in 1930, the federal government became much more powerful and capable of enforcing leprosy isolation. Those scientists that supported leprosy control were given positions of power and were able to transform the theory of leper colonies into national policy through defining the isolation as crucial to Brazil's economic progress. Compulsory isolation continued in Brazil until 1962, and many of the former patients still live in the leper colonies.

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2004-2005 Prize Recipient

» Adriana Lafaille for “(Paving) Local Roads to Democratic Nations: Communities and Decision-Making in Two Areas of Greater São Paulo.”