Education
Ph.D., Columbia University
Research Interest
Daniel da Silva received his Ph.D. in Latin American and Iberian Cultures from Columbia University in 2019, as well as a Certificate in Feminist Scholarship from the Institute of Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality in 2016. Coming to Rutgers University is a homecoming of sorts, after receiving a B.A. in History with a minor in Lusophone World Cultures at Rutgers University, Newark, in 2012. Da Silva’s interests in music, Lusophone cultures, and queer performance were cultivated through his youth growing up in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, then as a performer of music with albums and regional tours throughout the Northeast, and during a decade working in New York’s music industry scenes. These experiences continue to inform his research of popular, gay, trans, queer and feminist Portuguese-language music and performance, and the nonnormative artists and desires he works to amplify.
Daniel da Silva’s research specializes in gender, sexuality, race, performance and popular music in the Portuguese-speaking world. His forthcoming book, Trans Tessituras: Transatlantic and Transgender Bodies of Luso-Afro-Brazilian Popular Music analyzes contemporary queer artists in Brazil, Portugal and Angola to reveal how they transgress and remake the gendered conventions of Portuguese-language popular music genres by pulling at national and transatlantic histories and codifications of race, gender and sexuality. A second manuscript, Favela Feminism, also forthcoming, shows how feminism in Brazil is connected to the histories, work and desires of black and Afro-Brazilian cis, trans, and gender-nonconforming women through the favela and the genres of music and performance born out of favela practices.
Selected Publications
2018 “Unbearable Fadistas: António Variações and Fado as Queer Praxis.” Journal of Lusophone Studies 3.1(2018): pp. 124-147.
2019 “Black Mothers and Black Boats: Queer, Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian Intersections in Ney Matogrosso’s ‘Mãe Preta (Barco Negro).’” Journal of Lusophone Studies 4.1(2019): pp. 208-229.
2019 “Transgender Voices: Of Vanishing Woods, Bodies and Breath,” Out & About Blog, Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality, May 8. http://irwgs.columbia.edu/out-and-about-transgender-voices-of-vanishing-woods-bodies-and-breath
Select Conferences and Talks
2019 “Fado’s Unbearable Voices: Female, Bicha and Black,” MLA International Symposium, Universidade Católica, Lisbon, Portugal.
2019 “Black Mothers and Black Boats: Queer, Indigenous, and Afro-Brazilian Intersections in Ney Matogrosso’s ‘Mãe Preta (Barco
Negro),’” MLA Chicago
2018 “Rethinking Gender,” Festival Albertine 2018 Re-Imagining Democracy, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York
2017 “Death and Futurity: Queer Interventions in Clarice Lispector,” The Clarice Factor: Aesthetics, Gender, and Diaspora in Brazil, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures with Instituto Moreira Salles, Columbia University
2016 “Dissident Folk: Protest and Performance against Austerity in Portugal,” Portuguese Honor Society, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Fellowships & Awards
2018 Graduate Fellowship, Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality
2017 Elevitch Quasi Endowment Fellowship for Dissertation Chapter: “Angolan Trans Formations,” Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University
2012 Graduate School of Arts and Science Fellowship 2012-2019, Columbia University
2011 Phi Beta Kappa
Memberships
American Portuguese Studies Association
Brazilian Studies Association
Latin American Studies Association
Modern Language Association
National Women’s Studies Association
African Studies Association
Portuguese Honor Society
