Gustavo Costa, PhD

Gustavo Costa teaches both Spanish and Portuguese language and literature classes. As a native of Brazil, he establishes the connections between those languages, not only grammatically, but also culturally. In his point of view, teaching languages goes beyond showing students how to communicate with people from other countries. It is also a way to open a horizon of knowledge that a student can compare with his/her own culture. Moreover, speaking a foreign language gives a student the opportunity to be successful in his/her future career, mainly since the U.S. has a large population of Spanish speakers. Gustavo works with the “city”, imparting in his literature classes’ the life of different social types within the urban space, especially in relation to race and social class.

His teaching interests are: Spanish & Portuguese Language & Culture; Urban Studies (The City) in Lusophone and Latin American Literature; 20^th Century Latin American/Lusophone Literature; Latin American/Hispanic Pop Culture.

When not teaching, Gustavo enjoys playing volleyball, travelling (he has visited more cities and states in the U.S. than in his home country Brazil), photography (he is not a professional, but always looking for the right angle), visiting antique stores, working at coffee places, and going to the movies (he is a huge fan of thrillers). He also likes watching HGTV and relaxing at home.