The Fulbright Lunch & Learn series will continue with "A Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Ambassador: Fredrika Bremer’s Travels From the Stockholm Archipelago to the Caribbean." Featuring guest speaker Adriana Méndez Rodenas, a professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at the UI, this event will take place on March 4 from 12:30-1:20 p.m. in 1117 UCC.

Professor Méndez will discuss her Fulbright experience in 2008-09 as Distinguished Chair of American Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her research at the Swedish Institute of American Studies centered on Fredrika Bremer, a novelist and early feminist who embarked on a two-and-a-half year journey to the U.S. and Cuba in 1851. As a nineteenth-century female social explorer, Bremer recorded in print and image her encounter with the Americas, particularly the slave societies in the American South and Cuba. Touring Bremer’s America at the archives in Uppsala and Stockholm prompted a symbolic return journey by Méndez to many of the places that Bremer herself visited. Bremer’s role as a nineteenth-century transatlantic ambassador serves as a model for citizen diplomacy in a global world.

This event is free and open to the public - bring a brown bag lunch and a friend and come prepared to learn!

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact series coordinator Sonia Gunderson at sonia-gunderson@uiowa.edu or 419-944-3000.