Jeffrey Lesser is a U.S.-based historian of

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

who is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor at Emory University. Prior to that he was the Winship Distinguished Professor of the Humanities. After two terms as the chair of the History Department at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

he was named the first faculty director of the Halle Institute for Global Researc

He is the author of numerous books on

ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

and national identity in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. In 2022 Lesser won Emory University‘s Eleanor Main Graduate Mentor Awar

and in 2023 he received the Marion V. Creekmore Award for Internationalizatio

Lesser studied at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(BA 1982; MA 1984) and then earned a Ph.D. in

Latin American history The term ''Latin America'' primarily refers to the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries in the New World. Before the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the region was home to many indigenous peoples, a number of ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(1989) where he studied with the late Warren Dean. He was the Fulbright Chair of the Humanities at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

and also has held visiting professorships at the

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

and the

State University of Campinas The State University of Campinas ( pt, Universidade Estadual de Campinas), commonly called Unicamp, is a public research university in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Unicamp is consistently ranked among the top universities in Brazil and Latin ...

. In 2007-08, he served as president of the

Conference on Latin American History Conference on Latin American History, (CLAH), founded in 1926, is the professional organization of Latin American historians affiliated with the American Historical Association. It publishes the journal ''The Hispanic American Historical Review''. ...

, the professional organization of Latin Americanists affiliated with the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

. In 2015 Lesser founded the "Lesser Research Collective

and became a Research Scholar at th
Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo
with a project on the historical relationship between health and migration in Brazil. In 2022 Lesser was awarded a Fulbright Research Grant, based at the History, Maps, and Computers Research Cente

of the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). Lesser is also member of the Advisory Board of the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre for the Study of Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (Mecila

He is the author of a number of monographs in English and Portuguese including,
Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question
''
Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil
'' and
A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese-Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy
'.Linger, Daniel. (2008) ''

Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

,'' 13(2) 465–467 In 2013 Lesser released
Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present
'' which was revised and published in Brazil as
A invenção da brasilidade: Identidade nacional, etnicidade e políticas de imigração
''

References

External links

at Emory University
Lesser Research Collective home page
1960 births Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Brown University alumni New York University alumni Historians of Latin America Emory University faculty Brazilianists American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub