Research Interests for John D French

An historian of modern Latin America with a specialization in Brazil, my most recent book entitled Drowning in Laws: Labor Law and Brazilian Political Culture was published in 2004. I was on residential fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005-06) and at the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame (Spring 2007)to work on my book entitled "Lula's Politics of Cunning: From Trade Unionism to the Presidency in Brazil." I am also finishing on a book entitled "Globalizing Protest and Policy: Neo-Liberalism, Worker Rights, and the Rise of Alt-Global Politics" that reflects ongoing research labor and globalization. I have also organized an international research conference at Duke on 27-28 May 2008 on “Nurturing Hope, Deepening Democracy, and Combating Inequalities: An Assessment of Lula’s Presidency” with major funding from Duke and Brazilian sources.

Keywords:

Brazil, WTO, labor, transnationalism, African diaspora, Lula, PT

Current projects:

Since 1984, I have been co-coordinator of the Latin American Labor History Conference held in April of each year at Duke, and I served as Director of the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies from 2001 to December 2005, and as Director of the Carolina and Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies 2002-05. I also serve as Associate Editor for Latin America and the Caribbean for the journal Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, under its new editor Leon Fink (University of Illinois-Chicago).

Recent Publications

1. J.D. French, Question and Answer on comments by Brazilian President Lula at the International Labor Organization regarding labor, the G-20, and global crisis, Latin American Advisor [Inter-American Dialogue, Washington, DC) (August 24, 2009), pp. 4
2. J.D. French, Obama e o desafio pós-neoliberal [Obama and the Neo-Liberal Challenge], Teoria e Debate (São Paulo) no. 81 (April, 2009) [article.php] [abs]
3. J.D. French, Understanding the Politics of Latin America’s Plural Lefts (Chávez/Lula): Social Democracy, Populism, and Convergence on the Path to a Post-Neoliberal World, Third World Quarterly, vol. 30 no. 2 (March, 2009), pp. 349-370 [01436590802681090]
4. J.D. French, Resenha de To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil, Mundos do Trabalho no. 2 (2009), pp. 282-285
5. J.D. French, Os Trabalhos Arquivísticos Voltado ao Mundo dos Trabalhadores: Avanços e Desafios em América Latina desde 1992, in O Mundo dos Trabalhadores e seus Arquivos, edited by José Antonio Marques & Inez Terezinha Stampa (2009), pp. 83-101, Arquivo Nacional/CUT