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About me

Angela Alonso was born in Ida Iolanda, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1969. She is a specialist in political and intellectual movements, and received her doctorate in sociology from the University of São Paulo (USP), with a post-doctorate at Yale University.

She is a full professor at the Department of Sociology at USP and a researcher at Cebrap (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning), which she chaired between 2015 and 2019.

She was a visiting researcher at ALARI (Afro Latin-American Research Institute) at Harvard University, from 2023 to 2024. She also worked as deputy coordinator of Human and Social Sciences at FAPESP (The São Paulo Research Foundation).

She published the books "Ideias em Movimento: A geração 1870 na crise do Brasil-Império" (2001); "Joaquim Nabuco: os salões e as ruas" (Companhia das Letras, 2007), both translated into French (Poisson Volant, 2015 and 2017); "Flores, votos e balas: o movimento abolicionista brasileiro (1868-1888)" (Companhia das Letras, 2015), translated into English, with a new introduction, as "The Last Abolition: the Brazilian antislavery movement, 1868-1888" (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

She also co-organized "Joaquim Nabuco na República" (with Kenneth David Jackson, 2012); "1964: do golpe à democracia" (with Miriam Dolhnikoff, 2016) and "Conflitos: fotografia e violência política no Brasil - 1889-1964" (with Heloísa Espada, 2017).

Alonso's most recent book is "Treze: a politica de rua de Lula a Dilma" (Companhia das Letras, 2023). The research behind it subsidized the documentary series "Junho: o começo do avesso" (Canal Brasil 2022) and the feature film "Ecos de Junho" (Globoplay, 2022), both in partnership with the journalist Paulo Markun.

She was a columnist for Folha de S. Paulo between 2017 and 2023.

She received the CNPq/Anpocs awards for best thesis in Social Sciences (2001), the John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2009), the Jabuti Human Sciences Award (2016) and the Brazilian Academy of Letters Award for best book of the year (2016).

Over the last two decades, she has dedicated herself to researching social movements and street politics. She is currently researching political assassinations.

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