Cultura
Culture — Power, Mediations, and Arts
Coordination: Rita Luís and Catarina Laranjeiro
The Culture Research Group investigates various cultural practices, namely cinema, theatre, literature, journalism and photography, benefiting from the development of Cultural History and Cultural Studies, in dialogue with Artistic Studies and Communication Sciences. It values the political, economic and social power of cultural practices, analysing their importance for the formation of nationalisms and colonial imaginaries, for the development of consumption and capitalism, and for processes of social distinction or resistance and emancipation.
At the same time, the history of each of these cultural practices is researched in its relative autonomy. The group’s researchers pay particular attention to the methodological, ethical and theoretical challenges posed by the nature of the sources they work with — image, text, orality, materialities — and by mediating devices and institutions such as the museum, the press or the school. It also discusses the different ways of making sense of and being sensitive to the past, analysing the limits and virtues of various memorialistic practices, particularly those of an artistic nature, and contributing to the history of history writing and its discipline.
The group supports and promotes the publication of the scientific journals Práticas da História – Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past and Aniki: Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento, promotes the initiative “Passados em Cena” [Past on Stage] and cooperates with institutions and cultural facilities such as Portuguese Cinematheque, Culturgest, Ephemera, Tate Modern or the Bairro Alto Theatre.
Gathering mostly historians, the group also include curators, directors, documentary makers, photographers, and playwrights.
PhD Integrated Researchers
PhD Candidates
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Picture: Mural dedicated to the 25th of April 1974 located next to the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, in Lisbon. (Credit: Diana Barbosa)
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maio, 2026
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Detalhes do Evento
Research seminar that seeks to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and
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Detalhes do Evento
Research seminar that seeks to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and resistance.
Mind the Gap III:
Unearthing Petromodernity: Oil Studies in the Anthropocene
Online Research Seminar
The rise of fossil fuels has been central to the political, economic, cultural, and material transformations of the past two centuries, yet the forms of power, knowledge, and life enabled by carbon energy often remain analytically invisible. As we confront the converging crises of the Anthropocene, the need to rethink the centrality of fossil fuels to modern life has never been more urgent.
At a moment when toxic landscapes, resource frontiers, and environmental inequality reveal the uneven geographies of fossil modernity, the humanities and social sciences are reorienting analytical attention toward the energetic foundations of modern life. From pipelines and refineries to plastics and everyday petrochemical products, the material properties of oil have fundamentally shaped modern infrastructures and forms of life. What forms of political and social power are created through fossil fuel industries? How have fossil fuels shaped modern societies, their economic models, governmental regimes, everyday lives? How have they contributed to uneven global geographies rooted in colonialism and capitalism? What kinds of transitions to post-carbon futures are possible?
Bringing together approaches from history, anthropology, political ecology, and geography, we seek to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and resistance.
📎 Download full programme (PDF)
Programme:
Every fortnight we will meet online to discuss an article or book chapter circulated in advance. The sessions will start with a 20–30 minute presentation, followed by discussion. The sessions will take place on Mondays at 2PM.
We will explore key concepts such as petro-culture, carbon democracy, extractivism, fossil capital, energy regimes, and transition imaginaries, examining how energy dependence shapes modern subjectivities, infrastructures, economies, and ecological futures. The texts will be shared with participants in advance.
Everyone is welcome.
To register, please fill out the online form. After registering you will receive the readings and access information ahead of each session.
For more information, please write to unearthingpetromodernity@proton.me.
30 March | Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. Selected chapter TBA (Verso, 2011)
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA)
Focus: How fossil fuels structured democratic politics, labour power and modern governance
13 April | Adam Hanieh, “Petrochemical Empire: The Geo-Politics of Fossil-Fuelled Production“ New Left Review (139)
Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Global production networks, the Gulf region and the restructuring of capitalism through petrochemicals
27 April | Carola Hein (ed.), Oil Spaces: Exploring the Global Petroleumscape. Chapter 8: Peyerl, D. “Building Brazil’s Petroleumscape on Land and Sea: Infrastructure, Expertise, and Technology” (Routledge, 2022)
Henrique Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Infrastructure, territorial development and the spatial materiality of oil
11 May | Stephanie LeMenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century. Selected chapter TBA (Oxford University Pres, 2014)
Raquel Ribeiro (CHAM — NOVA FCSH)
Focus: Oil, media, culture, and everyday life in twentieth-century society
25 May | Appel, Mason & Watts (Eds.), Subterranean Estates: Life Worlds of Oil and Gas. Introduction: “Oil Talk” (Cornell University Press, 2015)
Amedeo Policante (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Anthropological and political-economic perspectives on oil extraction and everyday life
8 June | Alice Mah, Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation. Chapter 2: “Enduring Toxic Injustice and Fenceline Mobilizations” (Duke University Press, 2023)
João Pedro Santos (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Environmental justice, pollution, and grassroots activism around petrochemical industries
22 June | Chelsea Schields, Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean. Introduction and Chapter 1. “Crude Bargains” (University of California Press, 2023)
Anita Buhin (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Oil economies, intimacy, and social relations in offshore extraction zones
6 July | Tim Di Muzio & Matt Dow, “Global capitalism and oil“ in Handbook on Oil and International Relations (Edward Elgar Publishing , 2022)
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA), Amedeo Policante & Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Oil in international relations, financialization and the structure of global capitalism
Organisation:
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA)
Amedeo Policante (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Tempo
(Segunda-feira) 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Localização
Link to be provided to registered participants
Zoom
Organizador
Institute of Contemporary History — NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities and Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology
News
Nuno Silas is exhibiting at MUHNAC
Apr 29, 2026
He is one of the curators of the exhibition “Olhares Críticos no Arquivo Colonial – Sombras e Memórias”
Pedro Cerdeira, winner of the Amílcar Cabral Prize, in Lisbon
Apr 28, 2026
He will take part in the event ‘Desconstruir o Colonialismo: Entre Tradição e Revolução’
Fernando Rosas: an actor in the history he studied
Apr 23, 2026
‘It is very important to keep the history of democracy in Portugal very much in the public consciousness’
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