Hélio Augusto de Souza Alves is a second-year Ph.D. student in Latin American History at the University of Florida, where he works with Dr. Lillian Guerra. He earned a B.A. and a Master’s degree in History (in 2017 and 2021, respectively) from the São Paulo State University (UNESP). During his academic career, Hélio Alves has also received several awards and fellowships from national and international agencies to study and conduct research in Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, and the United States. Alves’ previous research focused on Fidel Castro’s public image and popularity in Cuba between 1952 and 1959. For his current research project, he aims to analyze the coexistence of three different categories of narratives about Cuba’s reality between the 1970s and 1990s: official narratives (produced by the state), experience narratives (produced by ordinary Cubans), and counter-narratives (produced by Cuban exiles). Hélio Alves’ research aims to put in dialogue three different perspectives about reality in Cuba while analyzing the intersections between the state’s legitimacy, toleration, and accommodation of divergent truths. In addition, this project strives to reveal what mattered the most for the stability of the Revolution: image, projected through official narratives, or reality, projected through experience narratives? For this project, in the summer of 2022, he received a 2022-2023 Goizueta Pre-Prospectus Fellowship to conduct research in the Cuban Heritage Collection.
In the past years, Hélio Alves also participated in several conferences where he presented his work. He also published articles on Cuban History in academic journals and conference proceedings.
Hélio is also a member of the following research groups recognized by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq): Group of Latin American Studies and History and Media.
http://lattes.cnpq.br/1817424325562613