Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos

GA, Ph.D Student in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS)

Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages (LCL)

I am Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos (she/her/ela/dela), and I am a Ph.D. student in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Connecticut, class of 2030, where I also serve as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.

I hold a B.A. in Language and Literature and a postgraduate certificate in Applied Linguistics from the Federal University of Maranhão, Brazil. From 2022 to 2023, I was a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at UConn, teaching Portuguese language and culture. In 2025, I earned my M.A. in Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies at El Insituto. My professional experience includes teaching English, Portuguese and Brazilian Literature, coordinating educational projects, and developing language-learning materials.

My research interests focus on Latin American and Afro-diasporic literature, language education, and questions of race, identity, and cultural translation. I am particularly interested in how literature and history intersect to challenge constructions of racial identity in Brazil and Latin America from the nineteenth century to the present.

My two favorite books of all time are The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas and The Book of Disquiet, and they continue to shape my thinking through their meta-narrative experimentation and profound reflections on selfhood.