Maria A. Fontes is an Associate Professor in the academic field FLMR-01/C (Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone Literatures) at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies (DiSLL) of the Università degli Studi di Padova, where she teaches Portuguese and Brazilian Literature. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies at Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, she consolidated her international academic profile by serving as a Visiting Professor at prestigious institutions such as the Instituto de Letras of the Universidade de Brasília, the Universidade Aberta (Portugal), and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she taught doctoral-level courses on Brazilian literature.
Previously, in Brazil, she worked as a lecturer in Brazilian Literature at the Faculdade de Letras of the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and at other prominent private higher education institutions. She also gained ten years of experience as a tenured teacher within the Secretaria de Estado da Educação of the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro.
Her research activity, continuously pursued since 1998, focuses on Brazilian women writers and poets and has been carried out in collaboration with the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Brazil) and the NIELM-UFRJ (Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Estudos da Mulher na Literatura). In this field, she contributed to the encyclopedia Latin American Women Write: An Encyclopedia (Routledge) and has published numerous essays and volumes, including the monograph Lei. Studio sulle scrittrici brasiliane contemporanee and the Italian translation of Luiza Lobo’s novel Sexameron: novelle sui matrimoni. A specialist in twentieth-century and contemporary Brazilian literature, her research explores Modernist, Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous, and women’s writing, analysing the intersections of gender, memory, and dictatorship through postcolonial approaches, as well as issues of national identity and immigration.
These research interests, which also address the relationships between visual arts, the avant-garde, and hybrid textuality, have resulted in significant monographs and edited volumes, including: Sob o signo da (re)invenção: A Poesia Concreta no Brasil e altre costellazioni poetiche (CLEULP, 2025); the essay “Poetica e politica dello spazio urbano nella letteratura dell’immigrazione italiana in Brasile,” included in Attraversamenti: Traiettorie del postcoloniale e degli studi sulle migrazioni nelle Americhe (Lithos, 2025); Mímesis (des)encarnada – Entre immagini e testi luso-brasileiros (Edições Esgotadas, 2020); Modernismo, Modernismos: diálogos tra Brasile ed Europa (TAB Edizioni, 2024); Geografias literárias de língua portuguesa no século XXI (TAB Edizioni, 2021); the chapter “A criatura (im)possibile. Clarice Lispector entre parêntese – travestir e desnudar” in Reimaginar la piel (Peter Lang, 2024); and the study “Barroco y (des)colonización: uma desobediência epistemológica” in Epistemologías en confluencia: Sociocrítica y giro decolonial. Homenaje a Edmond Cros (Peter Lang, 2024).
In the field of academic publishing, she has been co-director of the Lusoafrobrasiliana/LABra book series (Aracne) since 2016 and, since 2021, has served as editor of the series “Rudá: Letteratura, arte e cultura dei paesi di lingua portoghese” for TAB Editrice. She is currently responsible for the international cooperation programme between the Università degli Studi di Padova, the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, and the Universidade Federal Fluminense (Rio de Janeiro).
Her extensive scholarly network is reflected in her affiliation as a research member of CLEPUL (Centro de Literaturas e Culturas Lusófonas e Europeias) and CIMEEP (Centro Internacional e Multidisciplinar de Estudos Épicos), as well as in her active membership in major professional associations, including AISPEB (Associazione Italiana di Studi Portoghesi e Brasiliani), AIL (Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas), IECCPMA (Instituto Europeu de Ciências da Cultura Padre Manuel Antunes), ABIL (Association of British and Irish Lusitanists), and the Associação de Brasilianistas na Europa (ABRE).
She actively collaborates on the international project Matrimoine Afro-américano-caribéen (MAAC) with Université Clermont Auvergne and is a member of several international research groups, including GEOCIb – Geografias Culturais Ibero-Americanas (Universidade de São Paulo); Textualidades contemporâneas: processos de hibridação (Universidade de Brasília); Poéticas da Diversidade (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro); and the Literaluta research group (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo). Her academic profile is further enhanced by her service on the Advisory Boards of leading journals and book series, such as Revista Épicas (UFS), Revista Soletras (UERJ), and Revista Brasileira de Literaturas e Teologias (PUC-SP), as well as by her membership on the Editorial Committee of the Iberian Studies series “La Zattera di Pietra” at the Cooperativa Libraria Editrice Università di Padova (CLEUP).
Finally, she has organised and coordinated numerous international conferences featuring world-renowned scholars and prominent figures from Lusophone cultures, fostering dialogue with authors such as Luiz Ruffato, Bernardo Kucinski, Carola Saavedra, Luciana Hidalgo, Sony Ferseck, Daniel Munduruku, Valéria Rezende, Vera Duarte, Cristina Ferreira Pinto-Bailey, Tatiana Salem Levy, Luiza Lobo, Helena Parente Cunha, Bernardo Carvalho, Mia Couto, Manuel Alegre, Lídia Jorge, and Antonio Carlos Secchin (Academia Brasileira de Letras), among others.

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