Last week, from August 25 to 29, I took part in the National Seminar on the Life and Works of Manuel Querino at the Geographic and Historical Institute of Bahia (IGHB) in Salvador, Bahia. The speakers during the week-long event included Maria das Graças Andrade Leal, the author of a PhD dissertation on Querino’s life (a biography based on his work), Vanda Machado, who discussed Querino’s impact on African-Brazilians today, Vivaldo da Costa Lima, an anthropologist who focused on Querino’s work on Bahian cuisine, Luiz Alberto Ribeiro Freire, who discussed Querino as a pioneer in Bahian art history, Wlamyra Albuquerque, who spoke about Querino and his involvement in an African-inspired Carnival group, Mestre Cobra Mansa, who gave a presentation on his research into the African roots of Capoeira Angola, and Ilana Seltzer Goldstein, the author of O Brasil Best-Seller de Jorge Amado, who concentrated on Tent of Miracles and its main character, partly inspired by Querino.

I gave two talks, one on Manuel Querino’s struggle against pseudo-scientific racism and another, representing Consuelo Novais Sampaio, on E. Bradford Burns’s studies of Querino. For more information (in Portuguese) see my blog on Querino – mrquerino.blogspot.com