The Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Brazil LAB is delighted to welcome to Princeton the leading Brazilian anthropologist Carlos Fausto, who has been appointed a Princeton Global Scholar (2020-24). A world-renowned scholar of Indigenous Amazonia and an award-winning documentary filmmaker, Fausto is a professor in the Department of Social Anthropology of Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional (Brazil’s oldest scientific institution). 

Through the Global Scholars Program, the University recruits stellar interdisciplinary scholars from around the world to participate in research and teaching initiatives across campus. Fausto has previously held visiting professorships at the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Collège de France, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and Cambridge University. His Global Scholar appointment has been enthusiastically supported by the Department of Anthropology, the High Meadows Environmental Institute, the Program in Latin American Studies, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Working at the interfaces between anthropology, Indigenous and ecological studies, and the arts, Fausto has published widely in and out of academia. He is the author of the classics Os Índios antes do Brasil [Indigenous Peoples before Brazil] and Inimigos Fiéis [Faithful Enemies] (in Portuguese). He also published two trailblazing books in English: Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia and Art Effects: Image, Agency and Ritual in Amazonia.

Anthropology graduate student Lucas Prates has recently interviewed Professor Carlos Fausto, who will participate in activities online this semester, including the Brazil LAB-sponsored course “Amazonia, the Last Frontier.” In his remarks, Fausto elaborated on the significance of his Global Scholar appointment and on the many challenges and opportunities the social sciences face in today’s world on edge.

Read the interview on the Brazil Lab website.