Maria José Somerlate Barbosa is professor emerita in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa. She specializes in Brazilian literary and cultural studies. Her scholarly production is interdisciplinary and her book-length publications include Clarice Lispector: Spinning the Webs of Passion (translated to Portuguese and published in Brazil as Clarice Lispector: Desfiando as Teias da Paixão) which addresses gender as related to identity formation, age, class, race, and the body politic. Her book, Recitação da Passagem: A Obra Poética de Edimilson de Almeída Pereira (The Middle Passage: The Poetic Works of Edimilson de Almeída Pereira) focuses on themes related to the experiences of the African diaspora. She is also the contributing editor of Passo e Compasso: Nos Ritmos do Envelhecer (In the Rhythms of Growing Old), a collection of critical essays on cultural and literary representations of age/aging in the Portuguese-speaking countries. Barbosa served as vice president and president of the American Portuguese Studies Association, on the executive committee of the Brazilian Studies Association, and as a member of the Modern Language Association’s Luso-Brazilian subdivision.
