Events
Conversation with Jean Wyllys: Fake News, True Hate Speech: How Programmed Misinformation Aroused the Hatred of Minorities & Negatively Impacted Democracy in Brazil
*Live video broadcast will be available here starting at 6:00 pm (EST).*
RSVP on Facebook
*The event will be in Portuguese.*
Combining his experiences as a victim of fake news and hate speech and as the only openly gay lawmaker in the Brazilian Congress, Jean Wyllys’ new research aims to understand how fraudulent communicative actions impact voter subjectivities in political and decision-making processes. Wyllys will reflect on the tortuous paths Brazilian democracy has taken since the “coup”/impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff through the presidential election of 2018, and will explore the moral agendas that took center stage both nationally and internationally after the rise of the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. This discussion will be moderated by Susana Costa Amaral.
Co-sponsored by NYU’s Hemispheric Institute, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literature, and the Portuguese and Spanish Student Organization (PASSO) at NYU.
20 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10011
Jean Wyllys is one of Brazil’s best-known leftwing politicians and the only openly gay lawmaker to have served in the Brazilian Congress. He is also a journalist (Universidade Federal de Bahia Ondina) and author of five published books. After receiving numerous death threats from paramilitary gangs, rightwing extremists, and a nihilistic dark-web forum run by powerful mafia groups linked to the Bolsonaro family, he chose to go into exile in 2018 in order to stay (politically) alive. Jean Wyllys is currently an ALARI Scholar at Risk at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.
Susana Costa Amaral is an artist and researcher working at the intersections of politics, performance, feminist, and queer theory. She holds an MA in Performing Arts from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and is pursuing her Ph.D. in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literature at New York University. Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Amaral lives and works in New York.