Guidelines for Participation in BRASA XVIII
The 18th Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) will take place July 7-10 at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) in Salvador. The conference program will include academic panels, invited speakers, plenary sessions, and cultural activities. BRASA XVIII will be an in-person event.
All participants must be active members of the Brazilian Studies Association. You may initiate or renew membership here. You may also create a free account here (click on “Create Account”) and submit a proposal before activating membership. However, to participate in the congress you must become a member and register.
BRASA accepts two types of panel proposals:
1) Complete panels, for which all participants are already included in the initial proposal. Besides the regular presenters, a panel may also include the following roles:
2) Individual papers, which in the case of acceptance, will be assigned by the program committee to a panel with similar topic.
We strongly encourage participants to submit complete panel proposals. All proposals, including panel and individual, must choose between 1-3 keywords that describe the focus of the panel. As the congress will be held in Brazil, we encourage participants to present in Portuguese, but also welcome papers in English.
Each panel will last for 2 hours and should include at least 30 minutes for discussion immediately following the presentations. BRASA suggests panels to have four to five papers. Panels with fewer participants may have other individual papers added to it by the committee. Panels with five or more papers will be divided into multiple panels.
Submit a Proposal
Once you have created an account, log in and click on the following link
For complete panels:
Detailed visual instructions may be found here. In case of questions, please contact the BRASA secretariat at brasa@brasaweb.org
Call for Special Session Proposals
BRASA invites proposals for a limited number of Special Sessions that will create space for focused, creative, and interdisciplinary engagement with emerging themes in Brazilian Studies and/or topics of particular relevance to Bahia. These sessions are intended to move beyond traditional academic panels by encouraging active audience participation, cross-disciplinary dialogue, and collective knowledge-building.
In the submission site, proposers should insert “Special Session” followed by brief description of event. For example: “Special Session: A Conversation with Luiz Caldas, Pioneer of Axé Music,” or “Special Session: Film Series featuring Women Filmmakers,” or “Special Session: Plenary with Afro-Brazilian Leaders in Salvador.” Invited guests will not be required to become members of register but will instead be credentialed separately.
Once you submit your proposal via the submission site, please send an e-mail to brasa@brasaweb.org with the subject line: “BRASA XVIII Special Session Proposal.” In the text, include the title of your special session and a budget with a brief justification. A limited number of special session proposals may receive support from BRASA, subject to budget availability.
Possible formats include, but are not limited to:
Evaluation criteria:
The fact that the 2026 BRASA Congress will take place in Salvador, Bahia — a territory of immense cultural, historical, and political richness — especially encourages proposals that integrate academic and popular knowledge and build bridges between the university and society, with attention to topics such as emancipatory education, collective memory, antiracist struggles, peripheral territories, and socio-environmental justice.
Registration opens November 1, 2025. Registration closes July 01, 2026. You must be a current BRASA member and with paid registration to enter the program and participate.
Faculty: $ 250
Post-docs and Independent Scholars: $ 150
Students: $ 100
Faculty: $ 50
Post-docs and Independent Scholars: $ 30
Students: $ 20
Tolman Graduate Student Travel Award:
Donate $10, $20, $50 or $100
Brazilian Initiation Scholarship (BIS):
Donate $10, $20, $50 or $ 100
No refunds for membership fees. The deadline to cancel a Congress registration and receive a full refund, less a 10% processing fee, is 1 February 2026.