He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from UCLA in 1998. Prior to joining the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UCLA in 2008, he held a tenured appointment at UC Berkeley. He was recently the inaugural director of the UCLA Center for Brazilian Studies (2008-2011). He is the author of Machado de Assis, o romance com pessoas (University of São Paulo Press, 2007), on Shakespeare and moral imagination in the Brazilian realist novel, and Ruínas de linhas puras (Annablume, 1998), on displacement and identity in Mário de Andrade's Macunaíma (1928). José Luiz Passos is also the author of two novels published by Alfaguara: Nosso grão mais fino (2009) and O sonâmbulo amador (2012). His current research and teaching focus on contemporary fiction, Machado de Assis, and travel in the nineteenth century. Education