Natalia Brizuela, Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, will be working on a book project titled "Between Empire and Republic, or On Photographic Melancholy in Brazilian Modernity." This project is an attempt to understand why the growth of a national sentiment in Brazil during the latter part of the nineteenth century—the last empire—is marked by what she describes as “a profound melancholy.” She seeks to trace the connection between nationalism and melancholy and situate it within the context of the romantic movement and photographic production in nineteenthcentury Brazil. The book analyzes photography and literature in Brazil between 1840 and 1903, arguing that Brazilian photography of that period is caught at a crossroads, “looking to the past melancholically and being the material incarnation of the future as one of the exemplary technologies of modern times.”