Former Directors

John Tofik Karam, Director

John Tofik Karam is a Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies at the University of Illinois. His first book on Arab cultural politics in neoliberal Brazil (2007) won awards from the Arab American National Museum and the Brazilian Studies Association. It was translated into both Arabic and Portuguese by Centre for Arab Unity Studies and the Editora Martins Fontes, respectively. His more recent book is Manifold Destiny: Arabs at an American Crossroads of Exceptional Rule, funded by the Fulbright Commission of Brazil and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His current research is on Brazilian coffee in an Arabic Mediterranean from the 1860s to the 1960s.