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Onésimo Teotónio Almeida was born in S. Miguel, Azores, in 1946. He graduated from the Portuguese Catholic University, Lisbon, in 1972. He received his MA (1977) and PhD (1980), both in Philosophy, at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, where he has been teaching Portuguese Cultural and Intellectual History since 1975, and as a Full Professor since 1991. From 1992 to 2003 he was Chair of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies. He also teaches a course on Values and Worldviews for the Wayland Collegium, a center for interdisciplinary studies.
He doubles as a scholar and as an author, having also written short stories, plays, and crónicas. He is the author and editor of numerous books. The most recent are Onésimo. Português sem Filtro, 2011; O Peso do Hífen, Ensaios sobre a experiência luso-americana, 2010; De Marx a Darwin - A desconfiança das ideologias, 2009 (Prize Seeds of Science for the Social sciences and Humanities, Ciência Hoje, 2010). His book of Portuguese-American short stories, Sapa(teia) Americana, first published in 1983, was rereleased by Salamandra in 2000, and again by Círculo de Leitores in 2002. His book Mensagem – uma Tentativa de Reinterpretação (Angra do Heroísmo, 1987) won the Roberto de Mesquita essay prize.
He is the author of more than two hundred essays published in various collective volumes and academic journals; and of hundreds of articles published in newspapers and other periodicals. For many years he was a regular columnist for the literary journal LER. He continues to write frequently for the Jornal de Letras, and is a frequent contributor to the Portuguese press in the US and Canada. He was the founder, and continues to serve as director, of Gávea-Brown Publications, which publishes English translations of Portuguese literary works and of studies in Portuguese culture. He also founded and is the co-editor of Gávea-Brown, a journal specializing in the recording of the Portuguese experience in North America. He is co-editor of the recently created e-Journal of Portuguese History, a joint-venture by Brown University and the University of Porto. He is a member of the editorial board of several professional journals, as well as a member of various professional organizations. He was elected member of the Academia Internacional de Cultura Portuguesa, Lisbon.
He has given hundreds of lectures, mostly throughout the United States and Canada, and all over Europe, as well as in Africa and Central and South America.

Since 1979 he has been the host of a bi-monthly socio-cultural talk show (Daqui e da Gente) on the Portuguese Channel, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Throughout 2001-2003, he also hosted a weekly talk show (Onésimo à conversa com…) on RTP-Açores, later broadcast worldwide by RTP-International. He was a member of the Board of the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities from 1995 to 2001, and its Vice-President from 1998 to 2000. He is also a past President of the ACIA (Cultural Association of the Atlantic Islands), and has served as Vice-President of the AIL (Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas). The recipient of various awards, Professor Almeida has been named an "Oficial da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique" by the President of Portugal.

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