Richard Vernon

Teaching Professor of Portuguese

Director of Portuguese Language Instruction

Undergraduate and Study Abroad Portuguese Advisor

rmvernon@email.unc.edu | Dey 222

At UNC since 2003

Education

Ph.D. – University of California, Santa Barbara 2001
M.A. – University of California, Santa Barabara 1996
B.A. – Brigham Young University, 1994

Bio

Richard Vernon teaches various periods of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian literature as well as Spanish and Portuguese language courses. His research embraces Portuguese, Brazilian, and Luso-African authors from the 16th-20th century. He specializes in non-traditional and marginal literary forms that are appropriated for social and political subversion, for example 18th-century Portuguese street literature and Brazilian children’s literature from the period of the military dictatorship. He has received two grants from the Luso-American Development Foundation to study relevant documents in thePortuguese National Archive (the Torre do Tombo) and the Lisbon National Library to research for his current book project that deals with social debates concerning the increasingly malleable class and gender roles that occurred within the medium of Portuguese 18th-century chapbook literature.  In addition to articles on canonical lusophone writers and on cordel literature in Portugal, he also has published a book chapter on the use of food in Brazilian Children’s literature, a comparative article on American and Portuguese children’s literature, as well as several reference articles on Brazilian writers.

Publications

• Translation: The Formation of Candomblé: History and Ritual of the Jeje Nation in Brazil. By Luis Nicolau Parés. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
• Edited Volume: The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Lusophone African Writers. Monica Rector and Richard Vernon eds. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2012.
• Book Chapter:  “Sugar or Spice: The Flavor of Independent Identity in Brazilian Children’s Literature.” Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature. Eds. Kara Keeling and Scott Pollard. New York: Routledge, 2008. 180-190.
• Article: “Abandoning the Garden: the Querelle des Femmes in 18th-Century Literatura de Cordel.” Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies special issue. Ed. Arnaldo Saraiva. 9 (2009): 102-119.

Typical Courses

• PORT 270–Modern Brazilian Literature in Translation
• PORT 275–Lusophone Literature in Translation (Africa, Brazil, and Portugal)
• PORT 385–Luso-African Literature in Translation
• PORT 387–Brazilian Religious Movements through Film and Literature
• PORT 401–402–Accelerated Portuguese for Speakers of Another Romance Language
• PORT 101, 102, 203, & 204