The Center for Portuguese Studies | Tagus Press, and the Ferreira Mendes Portuguese-American Achives at UMass Dartmouth invited me to deliver a webinar on June 10. My lecture will be titled “Breaking the News: Portuguese Lusotropicalist Public Relations and Lobbying in the United States, 1961-4,” and will count with the special participation of Prof. Glória de Sá. Here is the abstract:
“Dr. Fernandes’ presentation will examine an important episode in the history of “fake news” in American mainstream media related to the Estado Novo’s pro-colonialist propaganda and lobbying campaign in the United States during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. It will discuss the operations of the New York-based public relations firm Selvage & Lee and the non-diplomatic activities of Portuguese-American “foreign agents,” as revealed by a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations investigation that led to the 1966 amendments to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Dr. Fernandes’ lecture introduces an Anglophone dimension to the study of lusotropicalism outside of the “Lusophone world,” by exploring some of the channels through which its pro-miscegenation ideas were disseminated among American conservatives, including right-wing African-American intellectuals.”
If you are interested, please register here: https://umassd.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xtK8NLk3ScSRvClKG1-VwA
Gilberto Fernandes 