Sandra Goulart Almeida (UFMG) interviewed by Fernanda Medeiros e Poliana Arantes

Abstract

When we thought about who to interview for this issue of MATRAGA, we knew that someone would have to be closely involved with the country's urgent issues and with the enormous challenges imposed on the public university. Poliana Arantes soon suggested the name of SANDRA REGINA GOULART ALMEIDA, president of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (2018-2022) and full professor of literary studies at the same institution, and the idea seemed perfect to me. Touché. Sandra, who was vice-president of UFMG from 2014 to 2018, is the third president of the university and one of the less than twenty female presidents among the current managers of 63 federal universities in Brazil. Her academic and institutional work has always been guided by a view committed to contemporary issues, reflected in her preferred research themes: contemporary literature, post-colonial literature, cultural translation, literature produced by women, feminist literary criticism, studies of the diaspora and space in literature. In the conversation, we had with her on 12/9/19, by phone, which is here transcribed, it is clear her intense engagement with university life, either as a manager, as a researcher, or through a commitment to the visibility of women. In addition, listening to Sandra is a kind of encouragement, for her disposal and perseverance to deal with the enormous challenges to education, culture and the arts imposed in these times in which we live.