Feeling, thinking, acting

Luana Antunes Costa has been a professor at the Institute of Languages and Literatures at the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB/CE) in Brazil since 2016, and is an activist in the Black Brazilian feminist movement. She is a founding member of the research group ‘Writing the Female Body’ (UFRJ/2015) and a researcher for the network research project ‘African Intellectuals: Conceptual Contributions of Dina Salustino, Paulina Chiziane and Akwaeke Emezi’ (CNPq/UNILAB). She holds a PhD in Comparative Studies from the University of São Paulo (2014) and has also completed two post-doctorates, one at Crimic, Sorbonne University (2021-2022) and the other in Comparative Lusophone Literatures at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2015). Currently invited by the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH) as Associate Director of Studies, Luana Antunes is developing her research on ‘Creolisation, creolities and other camouflages among Afro-diasporic women writers - A research project in Comparative Studies (Martinique and Cape Verde Islands)’ at the ‘Les Afriques dans le monde’ (Afrikas in the World) Laboratory (Sciences Po Bordeaux). She is also a visiting professor at Sciences Po-Bordeaux and head of the course ‘Epistemologies of North American Black Feminism and Feminismo negro-brasileiro’ (2025-26). 

Maria Araujo da Silva has been a professor of Lusophone Studies at Sorbonne University since 2006. She holds a PhD on Maria Ondina Braga and works on contemporary Portuguese literature, with a particular interest in women's writing, gender issues, poetics and body politics. A member of CRIMIC at Sorbonne University, she has co-edited, among others, the volumes Femmes oubliées dans les arts et les lettres au Portugal - XIX-XXe siècles (Forgotten Women in the Arts and Letters in Portugal - 19th-20th Centuries) (2016), Poétiques et politiques du corps dans les aires lusophones (Poetics and Politics of the Body in Lusophone Areas) (2021) and Artistes et intellectuelles en France. Itinéraires multiples (Artists and Intellectuals in France: Multiple Pathways) (2023). Her monograph, À corps et à cri. Le féminin dans la littérature portugaise de l’extrême contemporain (With Body and Voice: The Feminine in Contemporary Portuguese Literature), was published in 2025.

Maria Teresa Salgado is a professor of African literature at the Faculty of Arts of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She holds a master's degree in Brazilian literature from UFRJ and a doctorate in African literature from PUC-Rio. She has conducted the following postdoctoral projects: in 1999, research on images of laughter in African literature at UFF; in 2015, a study of images of the quest for happiness in Portuguese-language literature at the Sorbonne; in 2020, research on the work of Leda Rios, an Afro-Brazilian writer silenced during the Belle Époque, at the University of Orléans. At the same time, since 2020, she has been working on the theme of psychological suffering in female authorship in Portuguese-language literature (Brazil–Africa). She coordinates the Écritures du corps féminin (Writings of the Female Body) research group at the UFRJ. She is currently preparing the work of Leda Rios for publication

Marina Pereira de Almeida Mello is a historian and professor at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), where she teaches in the postgraduate programme, History Teaching course. She holds a PhD in anthropology and a postdoctorate in postcolonialism and global citizenship from CES/University of Coimbra. Her research focuses on post-abolition social history, the black press, ethno-racial relations, gender and black feminism, with an emphasis on the experiences and voices of black women in Brazil. She develops work that combines history, anthropology, decoloniality and criticism of archive production systems. She is the author of books and scientific articles and participates in the training of teachers in anti-racist education in Brazil.

Jules Falquet is a university professor of philosophy and a member of the Laboratory for Studies and Research on Contemporary Philosophical Logics (LLCP) at Paris 8 Vincennes-St Denis University. She has lived in Mexico and El Salvador and works, from a feminist perspective and with a focus on the interweaving of social relations, on the resistance to globalisation of various Latin American and Caribbean social movements and on the Francophone and decolonial materialist feminist epistemologies of Abya Yala. Her most recent personal works include: La Combinatoire straight. Colonisation, violences sexuelles et Bâtard·es du capital, Paris : Amsterdam (2025), Imbrication, femmes, race et classe dans les mouvements sociaux, Paris : Le Croquant (2023), Pax neoliberalia. Perspectives féministes sur (la réorganisation de) la violence, Paris: Editions iXe (2016).

Vivian Braga dos Santos is a temporary teaching and research assistant in the Arts Department at the University of Lille. After completing her PhD in art history and theory in 2018 at the University of São Paulo on the ‘historical function’ of artworks, establishing a new relationship between artists, their practice and the political conflicts of their time that goes beyond the limits of the artist-witness model, she was a resident at the INHA from 2019 to 2024. Among other things, she led the ‘Black Performativities’ project, which investigated the relationship between the representation of black subjects in contemporary visual cultures and the self-inscription of their bodies as working material in performance art. She is currently conducting research on the issues surrounding conflicts over racial issues and contemporary art, particularly in the Brazilian art scene, based on two main areas of focus: archives and performance.

Vivian Braga dos Santos est attachée temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche au Département Arts de l’Université de Lille. Après une thèse en histoire et théorie de l’art en 2018 soutenue à l’Universidade de São Paulo sur la « fonction historienne » de l’œuvre d’art, établissant entre l’artiste, sa pratique et les conflits politiques de son temps un nouveau rapport permettant de dépasser les limites du modèle de l’artiste-témoin, elle a été pensionnaire à l’INHA de 2019 à 2024. Elle y a mené, entre autres, le projet « Performativités noires », dont l’enquête portait sur les rapports entre la représentation des sujets noirs dans les cultures visuelles contemporaines, et l’auto-inscription de leur corps comme matériau de travail dans l’art de la performance. Actuellement, elle se consacre à une recherche sur les enjeux entre les conflits portant sur les questions raciales et l’art contemporain, notamment sur la scène artistique brésilienne, à partir de deux axes principaux : archive et performance.

Caroline Leal is an Indigenous scholar and feminist with a PhD in Anthropology. She is a professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco (Brazil), where she teaches in the Intercultural Amerindian Degree programme (Agreste Campus) and the Postgraduate Programme in Anthropology. She conducts research with indigenous peoples and quilombola communities on issues such as territorial rights, the right to intercultural education (both basic and higher) and gender relations. She is a researcher at the Centre for Ethnicity Studies and Research (NEPE/UFPE) and the Study Group on Amerindian and Traditional Peoples (GEPI/Unilab)