Sarah Ann Wells (Resident Fellow, 2019-2020) as selected as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2024–2025. She will be carrying out research in Brazil for her project “The Labor of Images: Strike Films in Brazilian and World Cinema.” Wells will be conducting archival research and collaborating with scholars and others working at the intersection of cinema and labor studies in Brazil.
This four-month residency in São Paulo, Brazil, will allow Wells to complete her academic book manuscript on the representations and labor practices of filming strikes in Brazilian and world cinema, titled The Labor of Images. Her research interweaves qualitative and formal analyses of films with historical documents, engaging the fields of visual cultures and film studies, labor studies, political theory, and Brazilian cultural history. A key premise of her research is that Brazil–with its singular history of labor resistance on- and off-screen—illuminates broader transformations in both cinema and labor regimes, as well as their understudied connection.
For the full list of the 11 UW-Madison faculty members who have been selected as Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2024–2025, click here.