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 a 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." In 2008, I co-organized an international research conference on “Nurturing Hope, Deepening Democracy, and Combating Inequalities: An Assessment of Lula’s Presidency” with major funding from Duke and Brazilian sources. I am also finishing a book entitled "Globalizing Protest and Policy: Neo-Liberalism, Worker Rights, and the Rise of Alt-Global Politics" that reflects ongoing research on labor and globalization.

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, “’Kill the Americans!" The U.S. Government, Citizens, and Companies in Latin America from the Panama Canal to Plan Colombia,", Radical History Review no. 112 (2012), pp. 201-208
2. with Alexandre Fortes, Nurturing Hope, Deepening Democracy, and Combating Inequalities in Brazil: Lula, the Workers´ Party, and Dilma Rousseff's 2010 Election as President, Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, vol. 9 no. 1 (2011), pp. 7-28
3. J.D. French, Another World History Is Possible: Reflections on the Translocal, Transnational, and Global, in Workers, Across the Americas: The Transnational Turn in Labor History, edited by Leon Fink (2011), Oxford University Press
4. with Antonio Luigi Negro, Politics, Memory, and Working Class Life in the Commercial Biopic Lula, Son of Brazil, A Contracorriente: A Journal of Social History and Literature, vol. 8 no. 3 (2011), pp. 377-394
5. Comparative Perspectives on Politics: An Interview with Dr. Alexandre Fortes and Dr. John D. French, Journal of Global Affairs, vol. 2011 (2011), pp. 1-5