Workshop that intends to promote a collective investigation of the origins and development of global infrastructures, emphasizing how their construction interacted with colonial projects, capitalist ventures, and cultural superstructures.

 

Global Infrastructures:

The Production of the Modern World

 

The concept of “infrastructure” has become so central to contemporary societies that it has become increasingly difficult to specify what the term refers to. Rosalind Williams has described infrastructure as a “highly promiscuous concept” that, since its adoption in English in the late nineteenth century, has constantly taken on new meanings and connotations. Originated in the late nineteenth century, within a fairly restricted circle of French engineers, the term indicated the earth foundation on which the ties, rails and ballast of a railroad rest. Already in the 1955 Merriam-Webster dictionary, “infrastructure” had come to indicate the “underlying foundation or basic framework of an organization or system”. The development of the term is indicative of the rapid multiplication of entwined subterranean systems and networks – including tunnels, aqueducts, gas networks, electrical systems, and telephone cables – that sustain and support modern life. It also suggests both the political role that infrastructures historically play in supporting the “Operations of Capital” (Mezzadra and Neilson 2019; see also: Winner 1980, Mann 1984 or Larkin 2008) and a persisting emphasis on the vulnerability of these artifacts: at once persistently crucial for the global value chain and increasingly targeted in recent years by so-called “Circulation Struggles” and new forms of “Riot Logistics” (Clover 2016; Dyer-Witheford, Reyes and Liu 2020).

Infrastructures have been always conceptualized as being at once an invisible and fundamental substrate of modern societies: a series of installations that lay below more visible social structures and that enable both biological and social life (Guldi 2010, Easterling 2014, Schindler e Di Carlo 2022, Naqvi 2022). As modern life came to increasingly depend on the construction and maintenance of infrastructural networks, tending to the “national infrastructure” came to be conceived as a quintessential state task at once too critical and too massive to be conceived, implemented, and run by a single corporation. Infrastructure has historically indicated the state-provided, universally-distributed services that sustain the national economy of a sovereign state: water and sewerage, energy, transportation, telecommunication and information exchange.

In recent times, however, the concept of ‘infrastructures’ is going through a further wave of semantic contaminations and expansions. In 2009 Edwards et al. could still affirm that the word infrastructure «often (but not always) connotes big, durable, well-functioning systems and services, from railroads and highways to telephone, electric power, and the Internet» (2009, 365). Today, however, this definition seems excessively restrictive. The concept of infrastructure is now applied to “digital platforms” (van Dijck et al. 2018 – define Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft as «infrastructural platform»). After the pandemic the term spread even more virally, and it has been applied to other fields such as care or education. This proves that “infrastructures” is a dynamic category, which historically grows and mutates according to societal transformations. What persists is the complex set of relations between ‘infrastructures’ and ever-changing ways of governing capitalist societies, a link that we set to interrogate from a critical and political perspective.

From this point of view, there has been an increasing emphasis on the key role played by a series of old and new “global infrastructures”, whose construction is perceived to be at once too critical and too massive to be conceived, implemented, and run by a single state. Global infrastructures traverse national borders and contribute to the formation of new planetary geographies of inclusion and exclusion. Examples abound: global critical infrastructures encompasses anything from the submarine cables that sustain the Internet to global shipping routes, intercontinental canals, satellite telecommunication systems, transnational electric power grids. These global networks facilitate the material, digital, and capital flows that characterize the globalized economy, and necessitate the interaction of several sovereign states. The rapid expansion of multiple global infrastructures not only fosters new forms of connection, it also sparks global conflicts and rivalries: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for instance, has unleashed a race to construct transnational physical infrastructures in Eurasia and Africa. Meanwhile, major powers are competing to shape the emerging global digital infrastructure. In general terms, we can even conceptualize contemporary capitalism as an «infrastructural capitalism» (Borghi 2021) or a «Global Infrastructural Capitalism» (Ngai and Peier 2022), which is indicative of how essential it is to collective work towards theoretical frameworks and historical analyses of infrastructures both as an abstract concept and as a very material set of entwined industrial artifacts.

In the last twenty years, in correspondence with the growing importance assumed by Global History, numerous studies have analysed past border-crossings and long-established transnational networks. This seminar intends to contribute to the discipline by promoting a collective investigation of the origins and development of global infrastructures, emphasizing how their construction interacted with colonial projects, capitalist ventures, and cultural superstructures.

 

 

>> 📎 Full Programme (PDF) <<

 

 

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Call for papers

 

The workshop will focus on questions such as:

– What global infrastructures have contributed to the construction of the modern world and the establishment of a single world market?
– Which public and private actors have participated to the construction and securing of global infrastructures?
– What ecologies of labour have been mobilized during the erection of global infrastructures?
– What forms of resistance and sabotage have opposed and slowed down the development of planetary infrastructures?
– What has been the impact of climate change and the ecological crisis on global infrastructures?
– How can the concept of infrastructure contribute to expand Marxist theories beyond the traditional distinction of economic structure and cultural superstructure?
– How can historical approaches help us rethink the relation between global infrastructures and imperialism?

We welcome papers dealing with all these aspects from an interdisciplinary perspective. Interested scholars are invited to send a long abstract between 400 and 700 words and a short bio to policante@fcsh.unl.pt and/or to mattia.frapporti2@unibo.it by 20th of April 9th of May 2023 [NEW].

Successful applicants will be communicated by the 10th of May and invited to the final workshop that will take place on the 9th of June 2023 at the University of Bologna in the Department of Arts.

 

>> 📎 Download the updated call for papers (PDF) <<

 

Seminar cycle, integrated in the Advanced Studies Platform of the IHC, where ongoing research work is discussed in a critical and constructive way.

 

Seminário de Teses de Doutoramento do IHC

Ciclo 2022/2023

 

Coordenação: Joana Beato Ribeiro, Joana Matias, Pamela Peres Cabreira, Rebeca Ávila, Rita Lucas Narra, Bruno Zorek, Pedro Martins e Rita Luís.

 

O seminário reúne numa das quarta-feiras de cada mês, entre as 10h e as 12h.

Em cada sessão serão discutidas duas investigações de doutoramento em curso, com apresentações de 10 minutos, seguidas pelos comentários de dois/duas discussants por apresentação (um doutorando/a e um investigador/a doutorado do IHC) e uma discussão colectiva construtiva. Os participantes fornecerão previamente um texto, que poderá ser: (i) uma proposta de investigação submetida à FCT ou ao IHC para obtenção de bolsa, (ii) o trabalho final de curso apresentado no final da parte lectiva do doutoramento, (iii) um capítulo da futura tese de doutoramento, (iv) a introdução ou conclusão da mesma.

A leitura prévia do texto é condição de participação nas sessões, que decorrerão sobretudo através do Zoom.

Quem desejar receber os textos e os links para cada sessão deverá solicitá-los ao Pedro Martins através do email pedromartins@fcsh.unl.pt.

 

 

PROGRAMA 2022/2023

 

Sessão #1  |  26 de Outubro de 2022
Rebeca Ávila – “Brasil, Cuba e as violências políticas em África. Colonialidade e racialidade durante a Guerra Fria (1961-1988)“
Comentário de Sofia Lisboa e Raquel Ribeiro
Ricardo Mignorance – “Arquivos de Governação Colonial e Pós-Colonial: percursos e histórico de custódia entre Portugal e Brasil durante os séculos XIX e XX“
Comentário de Bruna Santiago e Bruno Zorek

Sessão #2  |  14 de Dezembro de 2022
Catarina Teixeira – “O ‘Museu de Anatomia’ da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa (1825-1970): a biografia de um acervo invisível“
Comentário de Joana Beato Ribeiro e Ângela Salgueiro

Sessão #3  |  18 de Janeiro de 2023
Daniel Freire Santos – “Vou à bola! Culturas Adeptas, Economia Política e Estado na História do Futebol em Portugal (1910-2020)“
Comentário de Gil Gonçalves e Rahul Kumar
Maria Manuela Gomes – “A Fotografia de Amador e de Salão em Portugal, através da Secção de Fotografia do Grupo Desportivo da C.U.F. (1951-1963)“
Comentário de Paulo Catrica

Sessão #4  |  15 de Fevereiro de 2023
Joaquim Melon Simões – “O Conselho de Saúde Pública e as políticas sanitárias oitocentistas (1837-1868)“
Comentário de Pedro Mota Tavares
João Luís Sequeira – “Humanizar a arqueologia industrial – Desigualdade, identidade e conflito na fábrica e as inter-relações no património arqueológico industrial do Século XX“
Comentário de João Pedro Santos e Xurxo Ayán Vila

Sessão #5  |  22 de Março de 2023
José Augusto Pereira – “O império Português e as Migrações: o caso de Cabo Verde e S. Tomé e Príncipe entre 1930 e 1974“
Comentário de Leonor Pires Martins e Marta Macedo
Maria José Oliveira – “A emigração económica portuguesa na Guerra Civil de Espanha. Galiza e Astúrias. 1936-1945: combatentes pela República, vítimas do Franquismo“
Comentário de Rui Aballe Vieira e Marta Silva

Sessão #6  |  19 de Abril de 2022
Tomás Diel Melícias – “Por bem ou por Mao: o pensamento maoísta na construção política da União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (1966 – 1975)“
Comentário de Rebeca Ávila e Rui Lopes
Paulo Jorge – “A resistência ao Estado Novo no concelho de Almada (1961-1974)“
Comentário de Ana Sofia Ferreira

Sessão #7  |  17 de Maio de 2023
Inês José – “Alimentar na Guerra e na Paz: os impactos económicos e sociais da escassez (1914–1929)“
Comentário de Pedro Mota Tavares e Miguel Carmo
Jorge Mano Torres – “O Instituto Nacional do Trabalho e Previdência (INTP) e o Corporativismo Português (1933-1974): As Delegações de Braga e Covilhã“
Comentário de Elisa Lopes da Silva

Sessão #8  |  21 de Junho de 2023
Joana Beato Ribeiro – “Identidade(s) científica(s): o património documental de Fernando da Silva Correia (1893-1966)”
Comentário de Joana Matias e Quintino Lopes
João Amendoeira Peixoto – “Medicina e Património cultural em Tomar: o caso do Dr. José Vieira da Silva Guimarães”

Sessão #9  |  19 de Julho de 2023
Sofia Lisboa – “O Museu Nacional Resistência e Liberdade (Peniche) e a Memória da Violência Política do Século XX: Estudo Comparado entre Portugal, a África do Sul e o Chile”
Comentário de Miguel Filipe Silva e Giulia Strippoli
Inês Ferreira de Almeida – “Corpos Femininos, Presos Políticos: A Violência Policial face às Mulheres na Resistência ao Regime Fascista”
Comentário de Pamela Peres Cabreira e Elisabetta Girotto

 

Fifth (and final) seminar of the Associated Laboratory IN2PAST, dedicated to the Exploratory Projects ongoing in 2023. PI: Hélia Marçal.

 

MATERIA: Towards a critical lexicon of materiality in the arts and heritage

 

Apresentação de Hélia Marçal (IR; IHC — NOVA FCSH / UCL) e demais equipa do projecto: Daniela Salazar (IHA — NOVA FCSH), Rui Lopes (IHC — NOVA FCSH) e Leonel Alegre (HERCULES — Universidade de Évora).

Comentários de Sónia Vespeira de Almeida (CRIA — NOVA FCSH)

 

Although matter and materiality are intrinsic to the arts and heritage fields, the terms underpinning discourse and practice around its manifestations are arguably more contested than ever. Negotiating terms and their boundaries becomes an essential task when redefining materialities and their past, present, and future. Understanding what matters in material culture and the various disciplines underpinning its study will help us understand decision-making processes regarding the conservation, historicisation, and overall transmission of art and heritage practices.
This seed project aims to set the basis for creating a critical lexicon addressing the diverse ways in which materiality is performed within the arts and heritage fields, and, specifically, in museum practice. It draws on existing efforts to interrogate how we understand matter and knowledge (specifically through posthumanism) to expand the idea of materiality in itself by creating a lexicon. Due to their intrinsic relationship with language (and, therefore, culture and practice), lexicons have particular potential to emerge as critical tools to rehearse forms of situated practice.
The project will be developed in three stages: (1) identification of challenges current terms pose to a posthuman ideal of arts and heritage, (2) identification of critical terms, (3) writing up of entries for 12 terms. Relevant challenges will include the current climate emergency, social erasures of racialised groups, and forms of capitalist extractivism. Applicable terms will be identified through three collaborative laboratories that will bring together team members and invited contributors. In these Collaborative Laboratories (CL) context, the project will reach out to scholars and practitioners from critical race and decolonial theory, philosophy of science, and ecofeminism to address issues of misrecognition and extractivism, alternative epistemologies, and climate emergency, respectively. Specifically, we will invite participants from the areas of (CL1) performing arts and critical race and decolonial theory, (CL2) the visual arts and philosophy of science, and (CL3) historiographical practices and ecofeminism.

 

SESSÃO ONLINE

🔗 Link para a sessão via Zoom

 

 

Online course of the NOVA FCSH Summer School about the methods of oral history and its relationship with documentary film.

 

Metodologia da História Oral:

Como construir um projecto de memória audiovisual

 

 

Docente: Raquel Paulo Rato

Datas e Horários: 3 a 21 de Julho |  3, 5, 7, 10,12 e 14 de Julho — das 17h30 às 20h00 | 17, 18,19, 20 e 21 de Julho — das 17h30 às 19h30

Duração: 25h

Modalidade: online

Acreditação: Professores dos grupos 200 e 400

 

Objectivos:

1. A História Oral como metodologia;
2. Destacar a importância da preservação da memória oral;
3. Qual a função dos testemunhos orais;
4. Como entrevistar um testemunho;
5. As várias fases e tipo de entrevistas: pesquisa em arquivos, primeiro encontro com o testemunho, criação do guião, entrevista, transcrição textual/ montagem audiovisual;
6. Traçar as principais linhas de orientação para a construção de um projeto de História Oral Audiovisual;
7. A relação da História Oral com o Cinema documental.

 

Programa resumido:

O curso irá incluir exposição de matéria, serão visionados excertos de documentários, com análise teórico/prática, seguidos de discussão coletiva. Apresentar-se-ão entrevistas a partir do projeto Palavras em Movimento: Testemunho vivo do Património Cinematográfico, financiado pela Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian 2019. O objectivo principal do projeto foi a criação e a partilha de uma plataforma digital que alberga as memórias dos testemunhos do cinema português das décadas 1960-1980. Em Palavrasemovimento, não se pretendeu substituir a História escrita, mas sim revelar vivências pelos testemunhos, isto é, toda uma série de realidades que raramente aparecem nos documentos escritos e complementar o saber já existente contribuindo para a valorização do cinema e seus autores. Vivemos numa era de revolução digital onde a produção e partilha de conhecimento é muito veloz, sendo importante trabalhar o seu armazenamento. A História Oral não é um fim em si mesma, mas é um meio para o conhecimento e a sua metodologia poderá ser adaptável a outro tipo de investigação científica, caso seja justificável..

 

🔗 Mais informações e inscrições

 

 

Online course of the NOVA FCSH Summer School aiming to introduce students to basic concepts of botany and botanical raw materials and to explore their applications to artistic and cultural contexts.

 

 

Botânica e Arte

 

Docente: Luís Mendonça de Carvalho

Datas e Horários: 7 a 22 de Julho | Sextas-Feiras 7, 14 e 21 de Julho — das 18h00 às 22h00 | Quintas-Feiras 13 e 20 de Julho — das 18h00 às 22h00 | Sábados [visitas] 15 e 22 de Julho — das 15h00 às 17h30

Duração: 25h

Modalidade: online

Acreditação: Professores dos grupos: 230, 240, 400, 520, 600.

 

Objectivos:

• Conhecer noções básicas de morfologia vegetal;
• Identificar plantas representadas em arte;
• Compreender o simbolismo das plantas em distintos contextos culturais;
• Conhecer matérias-primas de origem vegetal utilizadas em arte.

 

Programa:

1. Morfologia Vegetal (raízes, caules, folhas, flores, frutos, sementes)
2. Simbologia das Plantas na Arte (Antigo Egipto, Greco-Romana, Extremo Oriente, Arte Ocidental)
3. Matérias-Primas e Arte (Óleos, Secreções Vegetais, Madeiras, Fibras, Pigmentos)
4. Visitas de Estudo (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Museu Gulbenkian, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos)

 

 

🔗 Mais informações e inscrições

 

 

Online course of the NOVA FCSH Summer School aiming to share the results of the research about the material heritage of the Estado Novo regime.

 

 

Arqueologia do Estado Novo

 

Docente: Xurxo Ayán Vila

Datas e Horários: 4 a 8 de Setembro | das 15h00 às 18h00

Duração: 15h

Modalidade: online

 

Objectivos:

1. Socializar os resultados do primeiro projeto de Arqueologia do Passado Contemporâneo realizado em Portugal (Arqueologia do Estado Novo), apoiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (CEECIND/04218/2017).
2. Partilhar uma investigação pioneira e original com o público sobre o legado material do Estado Novo, numa altura em que há um debate público sobre a memória e o património vinculado à ditadura.
3. Divulgar, além da Academia, as materialidades geradas pelo projeto ideológico totalitário do Estado Novo mais também aquelas criadas pela resistência ao fascismo.
4. Mostrar aos cidadãos como o espaço rural e urbano do país ainda é marcado pelos projetos de engenharia social e os usos públicos da memória promovidos pela ditadura.

 

Programa resumido:

1. Lição 1 “A Arqueologia do Passado Recente. Uma introdução”.
2. Lição 2 “Onde há poder há resistência: arqueologia da guerra do Cambedo (1949)”
3. Lição 3 “Vigiar e punir: prisões, campos de concentração e campos de refugiados”.
4. Lição 4 “A morada do homen novo: materialidades da colonização agrária do salazarismo.
5. Lição 5 “Arqueologia da guerra civil espanhola: rastos materiais de Portugal no conflito bélico”.
6. Lição 6 “O que fazer com o legado material do Estado Novo? A controvérsia do Museo Salazar”

 

 

🔗 Mais informações e inscrições

 

 

International conference that seeks to foster a global/international approach to studying censorship. Deadline: 30 April 2023

 

Deciphering Censorship

From regulation to the production of invisibilities, from the archive to the Internet:

an interdisciplinary approach

 

 

According to search trends on Google, the Portuguese/Spanish word “censura” and “censorship” portray the importance of their correlation with social media platforms, in English (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and famous young women in Latin languages (Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, Emma Watson and Lindsay Lohan are on Top 20 correlated searches, between 2004-2022). These two major themes, the economy and moral norms, show how censorship remains a question to be dealt in the present.

Nevertheless, such phenomena are hardly new. These phenomena, both economic and moral in nature, have accompanied the public and private sphere institutional regulation process, ever since, following the invention of the press, intermittent persecution of heretics was replaced by systematic control of printed material. Indeed, historical perspective enables observing censorship methodologies’ reorganisation in step with media technological development: cinema drove the age rating system (Robertson 2005), telegrams and, subsequently, telephone calls entailed flexibility in the controls exercised by institutions and agents of censorship.

Despite censorship depicting a quintessential display of the exercising of power, which is historically wielded by influential subjects, managers of public space, economic processes, and political institutions (Martin 2016), consensus around the meaning of the word censorship has crumbled in recent decades (Müller 2004; Moore 2013; Darnton 2014). This collapse first came to the fore in the context of the ‘Culture Wars’ of the 1980s and 1990s when American liberal academics, anchored in theoretical approaches stemming from the works of Michel Foucault (1978) and Pierre Bourdieu (1991), demonstrated the existence of censorial phenomena within democratic contexts (cf. Burt 1994; Post 1998).

The new approaches to censorship continue to accept that States may exercise direct control (repression) while also beginning to identify censorial dimensions of indirect control that may be deployed (through financing, education, public history, etc.) and, above all, starting to demand direct state intervention in the regulation of private powers exercising constraints on the freedom of expression (Post 1998). This includes the forms of “market censorship” that induce self-censorship (Jansen 1988) or policies of “don’t ask, don’t tell” imposed on gay members of the U.S. Army between 1994-2011, enveloping them in a type of annulment embedded into the structure of societies (Butler 1998). This embedded character of censorship in society has been labelled “constitutive” or “structural” censorship in opposition to that wielded by institutions such as the state or the church, i.e., regulatory censorship. Within this scope, the recent issues surrounding “cancel culture”, the “woke” approaches to culture, and the biases of algorithms demonstrate how this phenomenon is socially structural.

Hence the need to scrutinize such phenomena in order to scientifically distinguish between, on the one hand, censorial processes and, on the other hand, conservative discourses that – faced with the emergence of voices legitimately demanding new spaces for communication -, instrumentally deploy allegations of some claimed censorship to conserve privileges and monopolies. Therefore, we need to differentiate between boycotts and censorship, because they do not emerge from the same places in the power system.

We are aware that participation in a conference that seeks to foster a global/international approach to studying censorship not only has inherent implications for the study of this specific field, but also constitutes a challenge to academia that, by thinking globally, runs into the material limitations imposed by the present moment contingencies of the academic system, with all of its peripheries, and the social and political pressures that shape intellectual production and dissemination.

 

 

Call for communications

 

>> 📎 Download (PDF) <<

 

We would invite all parties interested in this theme to participate in the conference across any of the four axes detailed below. Nevertheless, there is an openness to other proposals that set out new paths and, hence, the framework below is in no way exhaustive.

Axis 1 – Analytical models and methodologies
How to approach the interferences of the different codes inherent to censorship? On the one hand, the society idealised by the institution, the one hypothetically resulting from strict compliance with the regulatory norms and, on the other hand, the actually existing society, with its references, prohibitions, plural resistances and creativity in answer to the invisibility of censorship? We are especially interested in models that explore the diversity of actors, contexts, and implications of censorship in interpersonal relationships (family, intimate, labour and social interactions).

Axis 2 – Framework for the factor of international circulation
The introduction of the circulation variable enables a questioning of national boundaries in the study of censorship. This axis prioritises those approaches that focus on the transnational and comparative aspects, whether introducing the notion of flow or focusing on the circulation of censorship, the censored and their forms of resistance.

Axis 3 – Meta-analysis
With censorship constituting a dimension that challenges the interpretative capacities of different actors, it would be remiss of researchers not to question their own respective subjectivity and capacity for analysis. What role does interpretative error occupy in the studies on censorship? How to navigate among the intentions of actors, producers, the censor’s interpretative skills, and the diverse subsequent interpretative layers?

Axis 4 – Implications of censorship
Censorial practices represent a point of entry into the analysis of power, culture, and political, religious, and artistic constructions. We seek to introduce this variable into the production of political, economic, social and cultural history.

 

Keynote speakers:

Nicole Moore, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra, Australia
Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor (Emeritus), Harvard University, USA

 

 

Submission of proposals

Proposals should be no longer than 400 words, include a title and be accompanied by a short biography (max. of 100 words). The working languages are Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. E-mail for submissions: decifrandocensuras@fcsh.unl.pt

Submission deadline: 30 April 2023

 

 

Organising Committee

 

Adalberto Fernandes (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Andru Chiorean (National University of Political Science and Public Administration, Roménia)
Daniel Melo (CHAM — NOVA FCSH)
Mélanie Toulhoat (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Rita Luís (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Rui Lopes (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

 

 

References

 

Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and Symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Burt, Richard (ed.) (1994). The Administration of Aesthetics: Censorship, Political Criticism and the Public Sphere, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Butler, Judith (1998). “Ruled out: vocabularies of the censor”. In: R. Post (ed.), Censorship and silencing: practices of cultural regulation, (247-259) LA: Getty research institute for the history of art.
Darnton, Robert (2014). Censors at Work. How states shaped Literature. NY: WW Norton.
Foucault, Michel (1978). The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.
Jansen, Sue. (1988). Censorship: The Knot that Binds Power and Knowledge, New York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Nicole (2013). “Censorship Is”. Australian Humanities Review, 54:45–65.
Müller, Beate (ed.) (2004). Censorship and Cultural regulation in Modern Age, Amesterdam/NY: Brill/Rodopi.
Martin, Laurent (ed.) (2016). Les Censures dans le Monde. XIXe-XXIe siècle. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Post, Robert (ed.) (1998). Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation. LA: Getty research institute for the history of Art and the Humanities.
Robertson, Jim (2005). The Hidden Cinema British film censorship in action, 1913–1975 (e-library). Routledge.

 

 

Conference organised as part of the research project CEMA – Censorship(s):an analytic model of censorial processes (EXPL/COM-OUT/0831/2021) funded by National funds through FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P.

 

International conference on the proclamation of Guinea-Bissau independence through the lens of connected histories, considering its local, regional, international and transnational dimensions. Deadline: 10 June 2023

 

The Unilateral Proclamation of Independence of Guinea-Bissau:

Fifty Years Later (1973-2023)

 

 

In January 1963, the PAIGC (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde – African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde) engaged in an armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea-Bissau. Soon afterwards, the movement started to claim control over part of the Guinean territory, the so-called liberated areas. From 1965 onwards, liberated areas became a key concept and one of the linchpins of the PAIGC diplomacy and were linked by the movement to the attempt to establish a proto-state through state-building programs to provide health, economic, educational, technical, judiciary, and administrative assistance to the local populations. The movement conceived the liberated areas and state-building programs to fit into contemporary paradigms of statehood and to be used as means to gain the support of formal allies and informal networks of solidarity, as well as to place internationally the struggle and the demand for independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde. This becomes evident in the way the PAIGV endeavoured to delegitimize the Portuguese rule and to convince the international community that the situation in Guinea was comparable to an independent state with a portion of its territories, namely the urban areas, occupied by foreign armed forces.

Claiming that Portugal was no longer capable of ruling over most of the Guinean territory, the PAIGC leader, Amílcar Cabral, started in May 1968 to contemplate the unilateral proclamation of independence as part of his strategy to win the war. The proclamation was postponed several times and only in the early 1970s the idea came to fruition. The progress of the armed struggle coupled with the United Nations (UN) visiting mission to Guinea, held between 2 and 8 April 1972, became a strong stimulus to the intention of unilaterally proclaiming independence. After securing recognition by the UN as the sole and authentic representative of the Guinean population, the PAIGC held elections to the People’s National Assembly and established the Republic of Guinea-Bissau on 24 September 1973. Soon, many countries recognized the unilateral declaration of independence, and 50 UN member states requested a General Assembly debate on the situation in the territory. From the beginning, the intention behind the request was clear since the wording of the issue in the agenda reproduced the PAIGC rhetoric of “illegal occupation by Portuguese military forces of certain sectors of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau and acts of aggression committed by them against the people of the Republic.”

Resolution 3061 (XXVIII), of 2 November 1973, approved by the General Assembly took the independence of Guinea-Bissau for granted, although Portugal denied the existence of the Republic and argued that it did not meet the criteria of a nation. Nevertheless, the resolution only welcomed the accession of the people of Guinea-Bissau to independence, failing to recognize the formation of a new sovereign state. This was a symptom of how divisive the recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau was for member states, with the United States and the United Kingdom threatening to use the veto power in case of a request for admission at the UN. No attempt was made for the membership of the Republic at the UN, but resolution 3061 (XXVIII) deeply influenced the future of the independence struggle in Guinea-Bissau. The document established that since the PAIGC held control over part of the territory, a unilateral proclamation of independence was a legitimate action. Moreover, the resolution refused Portugal’s claim to represent the colony, branding the country as an aggressor that was violating the sovereignty and integrity of an independent state.

The proclamation of independence significantly increased the international notoriety of the PAIGC and of Guinea-Bissau. The event played a crucial role in the process of recognition by Portugal of the independence of Guinea-Bissau that occurred on 10 September 1974. Overall, the Guinean anti-colonial liberation struggle transformed the face of the world politics: it worked as a catalyst for the regime change in Portugal. It was one the driving forces behind the Carnation Revolution (25 April 1974), that brought the Estado Novo dictatorship to an end. The Guinean anti-colonial struggle also influenced the whole Portuguese decolonization in Africa and opened pathways to establish state partnerships and placed Guinea-Bissau as a global political actor. This is why, as a local historical fact, the proclamation of Guinea independence should be scrutinized through the lens of connected histories, to consider its local, regional, international and transnational dimensions and scopes in order to shed light on the multiple aspects, dynamics, impacts and ramifications the event generated in Africa and elsewhere.

Although the unilateral proclamation of independence has been highlighted in the scholarship regarding the struggle for the independence of Guinea-Bissau, there is a need to explore the subject in greater depth. To expand the parameters of inquiry on the Guinea-Bissau rise to statehood (and taking into account the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Unilateral Proclamation of Independence), the Institute of Contemporary History at NOVA University Lisbon and CEIS20 at University of Coimbra will organize an international conference to be held online and in-person on 22 and 23 September 2023.

 

 

Call for papers

 

Proposals for 20-minute presentations on issues related to the unilateral proclamation of independence will be accepted, including but not limited to the following topics:

-comparison with other cases of unilateral declarations of independence;
-the PAIGC’s strategies for internal legitimacy and international recognition of the unilateral declaration;
-the recognition of the state of Guinea-Bissau by other countries around the globe;
-how the proclamation impacted the work of networks of international solidarity with the PAIGC;
-the intersection of the unilateral proclamation with the Cold War and the Third-Worldism dynamics;
-the narratives about the proclamation of the state of Guinea-Bissau created by different actors (journalists, film-makers, writers, artists, diplomats, and so on);
-the reactions of Portuguese authorities;
-how the Guinea-Bissau’s unilateral proclamation contributed to the Carnation Revolution and to the end of Portuguese colonial rule;
-the recognition of the proclamation by Portugal after 25 April 1974;
-the transfer of powers after the recognition and the relations of Guinea-Bissau with neighbouring countries, namely Senegal and Guinea-Conakry;
-the impacts of the proclamation on the negotiations for the independence of Cabo Verde and the other Portuguese African colonies.

 

Abstracts of presentations (300 words) and biographical notes (250 words) should be sent to: unilateralindependence@gmail.com

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 10 June 2023
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2023
Working language: Portuguese, English and French.
The organizers foresee the publication of the communications.

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

 

Organizing Committee

Aurora Almada e Santos – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Julião Soares Sousa – CEIS20 — University of Coimbra
Víctor Barros – École des Hautes Études Hispanique et Ibérique–Casa de Velázquez and IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST

 

 

Scientific Committee

Carlos Cardoso – Center of Social Studies Amílcar Cabral
Rui Jorge Semedo – National Institute of Studies and Research
Odete Semedo – National Institute of Studies and Research
Miguel de Barros – Tiniguena, This Land is Ours!
Patrícia Godinho – Federal University of Bahia
P. Khalil Saucier – Bucknell University

 

 

Imagem: 1973, “Aristides Pereira discursando na I Assembleia Nacional Popular da Guiné-Bissau, na região libertada de Madina de Boé”
(Fonte: Fundação Mário Soares / DAC – Documentos Amílcar Cabral)

 

Congress that aims to debate processes of patrimonialization of the memory of political resistance in the 20th century on a global scale. [NEW] Deadline: 7 June 2023

 

The Musealisation of 20th-Century Political Resistance

 

This congress aims to share case studies and deepen the theoretical debate on processes of patrimonialization of the memory of political resistance in the 20th century on a global scale.

The memory of the past is elaborated within the social frameworks that make the present. Over the last decades and years, memory institutions concerning the history of the 20th century have proliferated, as well as studies on processes of patrimonialization that occur in a museological context, considering aspects such as the conservation and production of memory and the archival and curatorial treatment in its technical, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions.

To be held in October in Peniche, the town where the the National Museum Resistance and Freedom is being built, on the site of a former prison of the Portuguese dictatorship of Estado Novo, this congress intends to question the multiple circumstances of what is preserved and what is represented of the political resistance, discussing the relations between this representation and the communities that give meaning to the pieces and the spaces, as well as questioning the role of the museum in its own time as a cultural, scientific, pedagogical, and civic instrument.

The congress intends to bring together papers that focus on museological institutions located in the most diverse contexts, from the Museu Nacional Resistência e Liberdade (Portugal) to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Chile), or the Robben Island Museum (South Africa). We also encourage the presentation of case studies from other European, South American, and African countries, as well as from other continents.

We welcome the submission of papers on other cultural forms of patrimonialization of 20th-century political resistance, such as historical landmarks, toponymy, virtual museums, internet sites, routes, celebrations, and festivals, etc.

Proposals, with a title, an abstract of between 300 and 600 words, and a brief biographical presentation of the proponent, should be sent to sofia.lisboa@campus.fcsh.unl.pt.

Deadline for submissions: 30 May 7 June 2023.

 

 

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

This meeting proposes a collective reflection on the theme of crises, from the perspective of the history of science and technology. [NEW] Deadline: 15 May 2023

 

 

Ciência, Tecnologia e Ambiente na História: Um Mundo em Crise

7.º Encontro Nacional de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia

 

 

O 7º Encontro Nacional de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (ENHCT) é organizado pelo Instituto de História Contemporânea (NOVA FCSH e Universidade de Évora) e decorrerá entre os dias 15 e 17 de Novembro de 2023, no Colégio do Espírito Santo da Universidade de Évora.

Procurando retomar um calendário regular destes encontros bianuais iniciados em 2009, a presente edição propõe uma reflexão colectiva sobre o tema da crise. A partir da história das ciências e da tecnologia, queremos olhar para o modo como conflitos ambientais, económicos, políticos, sociais e de saúde pública se sucederam e sobrepuseram ao longo do tempo. Sob o tema “Ciência, Tecnologia e Ambiente na história: um mundo em crise”, convidamos investigadoras e investigadores nacionais e internacionais a enviar propostas que explorem a variação espacial e cronológica de momentos de crise e normalidade e que abordem o papel do conhecimento e da tecnologia na emergência e/ou na resolução de crises.

O IHC tem o enorme prazer de laçar a chamada de submissões para o 7º ENHCT. Privilegiando trabalhos que abordem a temática do 7º ENHCT, aguardamos propostas sob forma de comunicações individuais ou sessões temáticas (com um mínimo de 3 comunicações). Todos os trabalhos serão avaliados por uma comissão científica e os resumos dos trabalhos aceites para comunicação serão compilados e disponibilizados em formato digital.

Prazo limite para o envio dos resumos é 30 de Abril 15 de Maio de 2023.

A submissão de resumos é feita 🔗neste link.

Email de contacto: 7enhct@gmail.com

 

>> Website oficial do 7º ENHCT <<

 

 

 

Comissão Organizadora (IHC — NOVA FCSH e Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST)

 

Sara Albuquerque, Quintino Lopes, Elisabete Pereira, Ana Cristina Martins, Ana Carvalho, Marta Macedo, Cristina Marques, José Caetano, Inês Gomes, José Pedro Sousa Dias

 

 

Comissão Científica

 

Ana Carvalho – CIDEHUS — Universidade de Évora
Ana Catarina Garcia – CHAM
Ana Cristina Martins – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Ana Cristina Roque – FLUL
Ana Isabel Queiroz – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
António Carmo Gouveia – Universidade de Coimbra
Augusto Fitas – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Cristina Joanaz de Melo – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Célia Cabral – Universidade de Coimbra
Célia Cabral – Universidade de Coimbra
Elisabete Pereira – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Filipa Lowndes Vicente – Instituto de Ciências Sociais — Universidade de Lisboa
Frederico Ágoas – CICS NOVA
Ignacio Suay-Matallana – Universitat de València
Inês Gomes – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Isabel Malaquias – Universidade de Aveiro
Jaume Sastre – Universitat de Barcelona
Jaume Valentines-Álvarez – Universitat de Barcelona
Joana Freitas – FLUL
José Pedro Sousa Dias – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Luana Giurgevich – CIUHCT
Luís Carvalho – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Luís Tirapicos – CIUHCT
Luísa Sousa – CIUHCT
Maria de Fátima Nunes – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Maria do Mar Gago – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Mariana Valente – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Marta Macedo – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Nina Vieira – CHAM
Quintino Lopes – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Ricardo Roque – Instituto de Ciências Sociais — Universidade de Lisboa
Rui Pita – CEIS20 — Universidade de Coimbra
Samuel Gessner – CIUHCT
Sara Albuquerque – IHC — Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST
Vitor Bonifácio – Universidade de Aveiro

 

Comissão Executiva

 

Diana Barbosa – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Paula Gentil Santos – Universidade de Évora

 

 

 

A imagem usada no cartaz representa as Grandes Inundações do Natal de 1717 e é proveniente de: Adelsheim, Philomon, Neuer und Verbesserter Kriegs-(,) Mord- und Tod-(,) Jammer- und Noth-Calender. Nürnberg, 1719. 

 

International congress that will explore religious figures and institutions which raised their voices and took action again colonialism and the dictatorship of the Estado Novo.

 

 

Religious Consciences and Colonialism:

Experiences and Legacies

 

Commemorating of the 50th anniversary of Carnation Revolution, the International Conference Religious Consciences and Colonialism: Experiences and Legacies will take place at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Lisbon between 17 and 19 January 2024. The event is organised by the Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto, Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos Internacionais do Instituto Superior das Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos, Institute of Contemporary History of the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Queen’s University Belfast.

Part of the commemoration of the Portuguese revolution, this international conference will explore religious figures and institutions which, through the conscience and actions, raised their voices and took action again colonialism and the dictatorship of the Estado Novo. At the same time it aims at assessing the religious, social and political heritage that exists in the societies formerly colonised by Portugal, particularly in Africa.

 

 

 

Call for papers

 

The forms of religious consciousness – from the local and ancestral to those that arrived in Africa by the hand of the colonists – can contain a synthesis of human history. In the colonial context, religious consciousnesses had to deal with themselves, that is, with their usefulness in shaping the relationship between colonists and the colonised, in multiple colonial situations. Colonialism and the changes of the post-colonial period have called into question the universalism of the message of some religions, particularly those that were the vehicle of so-called Western values, which none the less played a relevant role in the progressive affirmation of the colonised.

In different contexts and under different forms, at the initiative of European and African missionaries, catechisation and conversion were, inadvertently or not, vehicles for creating individualistic and, subsequently, new political consciousness, most often anti-colonial. Even if not oriented towards nationalist struggle, anti-colonial resistance in the name of religious imperatives – preached by African religious – had a significant role in the corrosion of settler certainties. Because of the African handling of religious messages, colonial domination (and also the forms of subjection in force after independence) did not always correspond to the spiritual subalternisation of Africans or the colonised.

Still, religious consciences or visions have not ceased to be instrumentalised, nor have they ceased to be disparaged by nationalist leaders, who, imbued by an unholy faith in their own political slogans, accused them of being a vehicle of alienation and subjection.

After coming under fierce attack from heralds of the new liberating creeds – like ideologies – religious consciences survived political vicissitudes and trials, while ideologies fell heavily. Not infrequently, political leaders pushed ideology aside, exchanging it for pragmatism or authoritarianism, supported, whenever possible and credible, by the invocation of the divine.

Nowadays, as a political trump card in various parts of the world, religious beliefs have conditioned, in multiple forms, political designs in independent Africa, especially in the former Portuguese colonies. If, to some extent, religious beliefs and consciences depend on the contingencies of the drift of societies, they are also based in their historical experience, sometimes against colonialism.

For this International Conference – Religious Consciences in the Face of Colonialism: Experiences and Legacies – we will accept proposals which reveal the multiplicity of religious experiences in the colonial context, and their political and social uses leading to various attitudes, from acceptance of to opposition to the colonial situation.

We will also accept proposals that evaluate religious legacies in post-colonial societies where, frequently, political actors and institutions have tended, implicitly, to replicate procedures similar to the religious ones they yse to criticise, to achieve the imposition of their truths.

*

Paper submissions, in *.docx, between 180 to 200 words, should be sent to religcolon24@mail.com by 1 October 2023.

No registration fee; the costs of participation are at the expense of the participants.

*

Working Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English

 

Thematic axes

• Religious consciences and wars
• Independences and ideologies versus religious beliefs and practices
• Church in support of colonialism – from civilization to Lusotropicalism
• Typologies of religious consciousness in a colonial situation
• Religious criticism of Portuguese colonialism
• Religious consciences and liberation/decolonization wars
• The Portuguese bishops and colonialism
• Portuguese colonialism, faith and independence: the case of Bishop D. Sebastião Soares de Resende
• Liberation movements, churches and religion
• The Church in the transition to independence
• Memories and legacies of religious practices in a colonial context and colonialism in the current churches

 

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

 

Organising committee

 

Augusto Nascimento (CH-ULisboa)
Eric Morier-Genoud (Queen’s University Belfast)
Magdalena Bialoborska Chambel (CH-ULisboa)
André Morgado (secretariado) (CH-ULisboa)

 

Scientific committee

 

Ana Mónica Fonseca (CEI — Iscte-IUL)
Augusto Nascimento (CH-ULisbon)
Carlos Almeida (CH-ULisbon)
Chapane Mutiua (UEM)
Conceição Neto (UAN)
Didier Péclard (Université de Genève)
Eric Morier-Genoud (Queen’s University Belfast)
Éva Sebéstyén (CEAUP)
Eugénia Rodrigues (CH-ULisbon)
Fernando Tavares Pimenta (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Iracema Dulley (PPGAS | UFSCar)
João Miguel Almeida (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
José da Silva Horta (CH-ULisbon)
Marçal Paredes (PUCRS)
Marcelo Bittencourt (NEAF, UFF)
Maria Inácia Rezola (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo (CES-UC)
Natalia Zawiejska (Institute of Religious Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow)
Paulo Fontes (CEHR-UCP)
Pedro Aires Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Ruy Blanes (CRIA ISCTE)
Salvador Salvador Forquilha (IESE)
Teresa Cruz e Silva (UEM)

 

 

International conference that seeks to analyse and assess Elizabeth’s life, times, and legacies across a broad range of disciplines, themes, and topics. Deadline: 30 September

 

Queen Elizabeth II: Life, Times, Legacies

 

The reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II (1952-2022) was the longest so far in the history of the British monarchy. Partly due, without doubt, to its exceptional duration, her seventy-year reign witnessed momentous events with far-reaching consequences, such as the end of the Empire; the decline of Britain on the international political scene; the ‘troubles’ and unrest within the British Isles and the prospect of a DisUnited Kingdom; the emergence and consolidation of popular and youth cultures and the relationship between the Crown and the media, to name but a few. The period is also of particular interest for Anglo-Portuguese Studies, as it raises issues such as the political relations between the two oldest allies during the Salazar/Caetano regime, the official visits, the impact of World War II, decolonisation, and the Revolution of the 25th April 1974, amongst others.

 

Keynote speakers:

João Carlos Espada (IEP, Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
John Darwin (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
Martin Dale (University of Minho)
Pedro Aires Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Philip Murphy (University of London)
Steve Marsh (University of Cardiff)
Teresa Pinto Coelho (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

 

>> Official website <<

 

 

Call for papers

 

This International Conference seeks to analyse and assess Elizabeth’s life, times, and legacies across a broad range of disciplines, themes and topics, such as:

• The British Monarchy
• The British and Other European Monarchies
• Monarchy and National Identity(ies)
• Monarchy and Republic
• British Institutions
• Britain and the Emergence of Popular and Youth Cultures
• Britain and the Welfare State
• Britain in/and Europe
• Britain and Brexit
• Britain and Portugal: The Alliance during Elizabeth II’s Reign
• Britain in/and the World
• Britain and the USA: A Special Relationship?
• The Queen and the European Monarchies
• The Queen: Biographies and Chronicles
• The Queen in Literature
• The Queen in/and the Visual Arts
• The Queen in/and the Media
• Screening the Queen: Cinema and Television
• Staging and Singing the Queen: Theatre and Music
• The Queen and the (Re)Invention of Tradition(s)
• The Queen, Memorabilia, and Merchandising
• The Queen in/and Fashion
• Royal Spaces and Geographies
• The Queen in and out of doors: Sport, Animals, and Pets
• The Queen and her Royal Residences
• The Royal Family: Past, Present (and Future?)
• Other

 

 

Languages: English and/or Portuguese

 

Submissions

The organisers will welcome proposals for 20-minute papers. Submissions should be sent by email to elizabeth2legacy@gmail.com including the title of the paper, an abstract (250-300 words), the author’s data (name, affiliation, contact address) and the author’s bio-note (150 words).

Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2023
Notification of acceptance: 30 November 2023
Deadline for registration: 31 December 2023

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

 

Registration

 

Fees:
Physical (On-site) Presentation: 130€
Online Presentation: 120€
On-site (Physical) Listener: 80€
Online Listener: 70€
Students: 30€
Members of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, CETAPS, IHC, IN2PAST and external supervisors to NOVA FCSH Masters in Teacher Education: Free

All delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodation.

 

 

 

Congress which is an opportunity to take stock of the situation and discuss, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the future of studies on the Portuguese Revolution. Deadline: 10 September

 

Congresso internacional 50 anos do 25 de Abril

 

Cinquenta anos depois, o 25 de Abril e o processo revolucionário de 1974-75 continuam a ser objecto de discussão em várias disciplinas das ciências sociais e das humanidades. Sobretudo nas últimas décadas, os debates em torno da Revolução procuraram ir para além dos estudos pioneiros sobre o processo político e militar, através de múltiplas abordagens que ajudam a compreendê-lo em toda a sua complexidade: as transformações sociais e a participação política de base; os contextos internacionais, nomeadamente no que diz respeito aos processos de luta anti-colonial e à Guerra Fria; as dinâmicas políticas e sociais na sua diversidade regional; a economia política da Revolução; os repertórios de luta e as linguagens escritas, visuais e musicais; o papel da Revolução e da sua memória na história global e na sociedade portuguesa democrática; os processos de patrimonialização, musealização e preservação das memórias; as análises comparativas com outras revoluções e transições para sistemas democráticos.

 

 

Chamada para comunicações

 

A ocasião do cinquentenário surge assim como uma oportunidade para fazer um ponto da situação e discutir, a partir de uma perspectiva interdisciplinar, o futuro dos estudos sobre a Revolução. Neste sentido, o Congresso Internacional 50 anos do 25 de Abril apela à participação de investigadores/as de áreas tão distintas como a sociologia, a história, a economia, a ciência política, as relações internacionais, a antropologia, a história de arte e os estudos artísticos e literários. Privilegiam-se abordagens inovadoras nos âmbitos temáticos acima referidos que contribuam para reforçar o conhecimento deste momento fundador da nossa contemporaneidade.

 

Plano Temático:

Secção I | O derrube da ditadura: A secção I compreende os estudos sobre o Marcelismo e a crise final do regime nas suas dimensões nacional e internacional, incluindo as dinâmicas sociais e políticas geradas em torno Guerra Colonial.

Secção II | A revolução política: A secção II é dedicada à dissolução do aparelho de repressão política, judicial e censório e a responsabilização política, criminal e administrativa dos seus agentes (dissoluções, prisões, saneamentos, interdições, julgamentos), ao processo político revolucionário (as suas diferentes fases entre o 25 de Abril e a aprovação da Constituição de 1976), à Assembleia Constituinte, aos Pactos MFA/Partidos e à Constituição de Abril de 1976, aos partidos políticos e à conquista das liberdades públicas, do sufrágio universal e do direito à greve.

Secção III | A revolução económica e social: A secção III inclui investigação sobre as lutas dos trabalhadores e os órgãos de vontade popular, as lutas dos moradores e a questão da habitação, a reforma agrária e as novas políticas agrárias, as nacionalizações e as estratégias de desenvolvimento económico, as lutas feministas e as organizações das mulheres, as lutas pela diversidade sexual e de género e os seus movimentos, as lutas anti-racistas e os seus movimentos, a população racializada, o ensino e o movimento estudantil.

Secção IV | A revolução cultural: A secção IV versa sobre a cultura no PREC, incluindo a imprensa, o audiovisual (rádio e televisão), a música, o cinema, o teatro, a literatura, a pintura e os murais, o cartaz.

Secção V | A queda do império colonial: A secção V é dedicada à descolonização. Reúne apresentações sobre a situação da Guerra Colonial e as guerras de libertação em 1974, a questão colonial e o poder político e militar em Portugal no processo revolucionário, os movimentos de libertação nacional e o processo de descolonização, os efeitos da descolonização na sociedade portuguesa, a chegada a Portugal de populações das antigas colónias, a situação dos militares africanos integrados nas forças militares portuguesas, o racismo estrutural da sociedade portuguesa.

Secção VI | Processo revolucionário e relações internacionais (1974-1976): A secção VI trata da conjuntura internacional e da política externa dos governos provisórios, das ligações internacionais entre forças políticas e o poder militar, dos apoios internacionais e da intervenção externa no processo revolucionário.

Secção VII | A revolução portuguesa e os processos de transição para a democracia: A secção VII introduz a dimensão comparativa no estudo da Revolução portuguesa. Aborda a temática a partir de reflexões em torno das Revoluções, dos processos de democratização, das convergências e divergências das transições para a democracia.

Secção VIII | As representações da memória política do 25 de Abril: Nesta secção agrupam-se as pesquisas dedicadas aos processos de memorialização do passado e as suas mutações ao longo do tempo, às políticas publicas de memória e às políticas do esquecimento, aos debates das interpretações sobre história e memória em suas múltiplas dimensões e ao comemorativismo.

 

Submissão de propostas 🔗 neste link.

Datas: 2, 3 e 4 de Maio de 2024
Local: Reitoria da Universidade de Lisboa
Os interessados/as devem submeter a sua proposta através do formulário até dia 10 de Setembro de 2023.

 

 

Comissão Organizadora

 

Maria Inácia Rezola, Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril / IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Fernando Rosas, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
José Neves, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Miguel Cardina, CES – Universidade de Coimbra
Rita Almeida de Carvalho, ICS – Universidade de Lisboa
José Lopes Cordeiro, Universidade do Minho

 

Comissão Científica

 

Álvaro Garrido, CEIS20 – Universidade de Coimbra
António Costa Pinto, ICS – Universidade de Lisboa
Fernando Rosas, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
José Lopes Cordeiro, Universidade do Minho
José Neves, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Luís Trindade, CEIS20 – Universidade de Coimbra
Luísa Tiago de Oliveira, CIES – ISCTE
Manuel Loff, Universidade do Porto, IHC – NOVA FCSH
Maria da Conceição Meireles Pereira, CITCEM
Maria Fernanda Rolo, Pólo do CEF na NOVA FCSH
Maria Inácia Rezola, Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril / IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Miguel Cardina, CES – Universidade de Coimbra
Rui Bebiano, Centro de Documentação 25 de Abril – Universidade de Coimbra
Sérgio Campo Matos, CHUL – FLUL
Sílvia Roque, CES – Universidade de Coimbra e Universidade de Évora
Sónia Vespeira de Almeida, CRIA – NOVA FCSH
Rita Rato, Museu do Aljube
Luísa Teotónio Pereira, CIDAC • CULTRA, Cooperativa Culturas do Trabalho e Socialismo

 

 

Fifth network conference of the International Network for Theory of History, gathering theorists of history and historians of historiography from around the world. Deadline: 18 September 2023

 

 

History & Responsibility:

Doing History in Times of Conflicting Political Demands

5th network conference of the International Network for Theory of History

 

 

The International Network for Theory of History (INTH) is pleased to announce that its fifth network conference will take place on 22, 23 and 24 May 2024 and will be hosted by the Institute of Contemporary History at NOVA University Lisbon. The goal of the conference is to gather theorists of history and historians of historiography from around the world, and foster the exchange of ideas, questions, and resources. This year’s overarching theme is historical responsibility.

The writing of history has always involved ethical concerns. But the past few decades have witnessed increasing and widespread public discussions about the responsibility of history and historians in society. Perhaps the most famous examples of this are the debates surrounding historical wrongs and their relation to contemporary injustices and inequalities. Think, for instance, of the initiatives that seek to address the role of historical slavery in contemporary racism or the continuing influence of colonial legacies on (global) power relations. The idea of historical wrongs has also been raised in relation to the impact of past pollution on climate change, or the influence of institutional child abuse on contemporary socio-economic problems faced by indigenous communities.

Historians and their work have often been under the spotlight in such discussions: while some wish to see (academic) historiography as an important resource to back-up and legitimate claims for historical redress, others see it as having been neglectful of, or even (in)directly involved in, historical wrongs. Historians themselves have expressed conflicting views about what the ethical commitments of the profession should be.

The current proliferation of debates about the link between history and contemporary injustices provide an opportune moment to reflect on the relationship between history and responsibility more generally. This relationship is undoubtedly complex, ambiguous, and contested. Many historians have warned that engagements with the past do not inherently serve justice or lead to morally responsible behavior (Minow 1999; Torpey 2001). Old critiques of the blind belief in historical progress or teleological conceptions of historical time have also unsettled the idea that historians and/or history itself can be the agents of “history’s judgment” (Scott 2020). In the field of memory studies as well, scholars have pointed out how the “moral remembrance” of dark pasts does not automatically lead to an enlightened “good citizenship” or increased respect for other cultures and noted that it sometimes even produces an entirely opposite attitude (David 2020; Gensburger and Lefranc 2020).

Despite these criticisms, many have refused to entirely give up on the idea that history connects to (moral) responsibility (Cotkin, 2008). If there is not even a weak moral motive involved in our engagements with the past, why bother studying history at all? In any case, many policymakers and professional historians appear to believe that engaging with history can lead people to become more ethically responsible.

Of course, many of the issues raised in these recent debates are not new. Historians have always reflected on what can be considered (ir)responsible ways of doing historical research or writing history. Recently, however, a genuine ‘ethical turn’ in our field appears to have gained a new momentum. We now hear calls for the rehabilitation of value judgment about the past (Bloxham 2020), explicit pleas for the creation of an ethical code for a ‘Responsible History’ (De Baets 2009), and an increasing focus on epistemic virtues (Paul 2022), epistemic justice (Domanska 2021), or the figure of the moral witness (Tozzi 2012).

 

 

Call for papers

 

For the 2024 edition of the INTH Network conference we invite contributors to reflect on the entangled issues of historical responsibility and responsible history. We propose the following guiding questions:

1. (How) are we responsible to history?

• How can we conceptualize ‘historical responsibility’ and how does it relate to historical ‘guilt’ or ‘debt’?
• (How) can responsibility be transmitted over generations? Is it typically a collective affair or does it primarily stick to particular individuals?
• Can we ‘owe’ something to the past or the dead?
• Are there temporal (or other) limits as to how far back one can go in history for the purpose of redeeming it or holding people responsible?
• Can grave historical injustices be ‘superseded’ by changed circumstances in the present (e.g. composition of populations, changed socio-economic relations or political systems)?
• Should priority be given to so-called ‘enduring injustices,’ (Spinner-Halev, 2012) whereby historical grievances have clear ties to contemporary injustices, or should historical wrongs be addressed independently of their legacy in the present?

2. (How) can we write responsible/responsibilizing histories?

• What kind of engagement with the past can help to foster a democratic political culture, address enduring injustices, or counter ultra nationalist, neo-fascist and other extremist political tendencies?
• What kind of historical narrations or other types of historical representation can be considered (ir)responsible in relation to particular contexts?
• Is the prime responsibility of professional historians a deontological one relating to academic procedures and source criticism, or can particular situations trump these and create other priorities and types of responsibility?
• Does a focus on historical responsibility always lead to forms of ‘presentism’ and is this a problem?
• Which political or socio-cultural circumstances are detrimental to the production of a responsible/responsibilizing history?
• How do the issues of historical responsibility and responsible history figure in post- and de-colonial approaches to history?

Other Topics

The main focus of this conference is on history and responsibility. Yet, as was the case for the previous meetings of the INTH, we also welcome papers on other relevant topics in the fields of Theory of History and History of Historiography, including (but not limited to):

• Conceptual history
• Epistemics of history
• Experience/presence
• Hermeneutics
• Historical time
• History and mourning/trauma
• History as science (causation, explanation, lawfulness…)
• Narrativism
• Politics of history and memory
• Public/popular history
• Substantive/speculative philosophy of history
• The history of historiography
• Theory of history didactics
• The relations between history and other academic fields
• History outside academia

 

 

Practical information

 

Those interested in taking part in the conference are invited to send in an abstract of 300-500 words either in docx or pdf format to inthlisbon@gmail.com by 18 September 2023. Please name your file following this structure: Surname_Title of the abstract.
We will consider both proposals for panel sessions and individual papers. Panel proposals should include a panel abstract, a commentator and a chair, and abstracts for the contributing papers (all following the 300-500 words limit per abstract).

Please visit the conference website for further information.

The organizing committee is led by Berber Bevernage (Ghent University), Felipe Brandi (NOVA University Lisbon), José Neves (NOVA University Lisbon), Luis Trindade (NOVA University Lisbon), Kenan Van De Mieroop-Al Bahrani (Leiden University) and Eva Willems (Ghent University). Please use the conference email address for all correspondence.

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

References

 

Bloxham, Donald (2020). History and Morality (Oxford University Press).
Booth, W. James (2019). Memory, Historic Injustice, and Responsibility (Routledge).
Cotkin, George (2008). “History’s Moral Turn.” Journal of the History of Ideas 69, no. 2 (April 4, 2008): 293–315
David, Lea (2020). The Past Can’t Heal Us. (Cambridge University Press).
De Baets, Antoon. (2009) Responsible History (Berghahn Books).
Domańska, Ewa. “Prefigurative Humanities.” History and Theory 60, no. 4 (2021): 141–58.
Gensburger, Sarah, and Sandrine Lefranc (2020). Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn From the Past? (Palgrave Macmillan).
Minow, Martha (1999). Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. (Beacon Press).
Paul, Herman. Historians’ Virtues: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Scott, Joan Wallach (2020). On the Judgment of History. (Columbia University Press).
Spinner-Halev, Jeff (2012). Enduring Injustice (Cambridge University Press).
Waldron, Jeremy. (1992) ‘Superseding Historic Injustice,’ Ethics 103, no. 1: 4–28.
Torpey, John. (2001) ‘“Making Whole What Has Been Smashed”: Reflections on Reparations,’ Journal of Modern History 73, no. 2: 333–58.
Tozzi, Verónica. (2012), ‘The Epistemic and Moral Role of Testimony,’ History and Theory 51, no. 1: 1–17.

 

International conference on the proclamation of Guinea-Bissau independence through the lens of connected histories, considering its local, regional, international and transnational dimensions. Deadline: 10 June 2023

 

The Unilateral Proclamation of Independence of Guinea-Bissau:

Fifty Years Later (1973-2023)

 

 

In January 1963, the PAIGC (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde – African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde) engaged in an armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea-Bissau. Soon afterwards, the movement started to claim control over part of the Guinean territory, the so-called liberated areas. From 1965 onwards, liberated areas became a key concept and one of the linchpins of the PAIGC diplomacy and were linked by the movement to the attempt to establish a proto-state through state-building programs to provide health, economic, educational, technical, judiciary, and administrative assistance to the local populations. The movement conceived the liberated areas and state-building programs to fit into contemporary paradigms of statehood and to be used as means to gain the support of formal allies and informal networks of solidarity, as well as to place internationally the struggle and the demand for independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde. This becomes evident in the way the PAIGV endeavoured to delegitimize the Portuguese rule and to convince the international community that the situation in Guinea was comparable to an independent state with a portion of its territories, namely the urban areas, occupied by foreign armed forces.

Claiming that Portugal was no longer capable of ruling over most of the Guinean territory, the PAIGC leader, Amílcar Cabral, started in May 1968 to contemplate the unilateral proclamation of independence as part of his strategy to win the war. The proclamation was postponed several times and only in the early 1970s the idea came to fruition. The progress of the armed struggle coupled with the United Nations (UN) visiting mission to Guinea, held between 2 and 8 April 1972, became a strong stimulus to the intention of unilaterally proclaiming independence. After securing recognition by the UN as the sole and authentic representative of the Guinean population, the PAIGC held elections to the People’s National Assembly and established the Republic of Guinea-Bissau on 24 September 1973. Soon, many countries recognized the unilateral declaration of independence, and 50 UN member states requested a General Assembly debate on the situation in the territory. From the beginning, the intention behind the request was clear since the wording of the issue in the agenda reproduced the PAIGC rhetoric of “illegal occupation by Portuguese military forces of certain sectors of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau and acts of aggression committed by them against the people of the Republic.”

Resolution 3061 (XXVIII), of 2 November 1973, approved by the General Assembly took the independence of Guinea-Bissau for granted, although Portugal denied the existence of the Republic and argued that it did not meet the criteria of a nation. Nevertheless, the resolution only welcomed the accession of the people of Guinea-Bissau to independence, failing to recognize the formation of a new sovereign state. This was a symptom of how divisive the recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau was for member states, with the United States and the United Kingdom threatening to use the veto power in case of a request for admission at the UN. No attempt was made for the membership of the Republic at the UN, but resolution 3061 (XXVIII) deeply influenced the future of the independence struggle in Guinea-Bissau. The document established that since the PAIGC held control over part of the territory, a unilateral proclamation of independence was a legitimate action. Moreover, the resolution refused Portugal’s claim to represent the colony, branding the country as an aggressor that was violating the sovereignty and integrity of an independent state.

The proclamation of independence significantly increased the international notoriety of the PAIGC and of Guinea-Bissau. The event played a crucial role in the process of recognition by Portugal of the independence of Guinea-Bissau that occurred on 10 September 1974. Overall, the Guinean anti-colonial liberation struggle transformed the face of the world politics: it worked as a catalyst for the regime change in Portugal. It was one the driving forces behind the Carnation Revolution (25 April 1974), that brought the Estado Novo dictatorship to an end. The Guinean anti-colonial struggle also influenced the whole Portuguese decolonization in Africa and opened pathways to establish state partnerships and placed Guinea-Bissau as a global political actor. This is why, as a local historical fact, the proclamation of Guinea independence should be scrutinized through the lens of connected histories, to consider its local, regional, international and transnational dimensions and scopes in order to shed light on the multiple aspects, dynamics, impacts and ramifications the event generated in Africa and elsewhere.

Although the unilateral proclamation of independence has been highlighted in the scholarship regarding the struggle for the independence of Guinea-Bissau, there is a need to explore the subject in greater depth. To expand the parameters of inquiry on the Guinea-Bissau rise to statehood (and taking into account the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Unilateral Proclamation of Independence), the Institute of Contemporary History at NOVA University Lisbon and CEIS20 at University of Coimbra will organize an international conference to be held online and in-person on 22 and 23 September 2023.

 

 

Call for papers

 

Proposals for 20-minute presentations on issues related to the unilateral proclamation of independence will be accepted, including but not limited to the following topics:

-comparison with other cases of unilateral declarations of independence;
-the PAIGC’s strategies for internal legitimacy and international recognition of the unilateral declaration;
-the recognition of the state of Guinea-Bissau by other countries around the globe;
-how the proclamation impacted the work of networks of international solidarity with the PAIGC;
-the intersection of the unilateral proclamation with the Cold War and the Third-Worldism dynamics;
-the narratives about the proclamation of the state of Guinea-Bissau created by different actors (journalists, film-makers, writers, artists, diplomats, and so on);
-the reactions of Portuguese authorities;
-how the Guinea-Bissau’s unilateral proclamation contributed to the Carnation Revolution and to the end of Portuguese colonial rule;
-the recognition of the proclamation by Portugal after 25 April 1974;
-the transfer of powers after the recognition and the relations of Guinea-Bissau with neighbouring countries, namely Senegal and Guinea-Conakry;
-the impacts of the proclamation on the negotiations for the independence of Cabo Verde and the other Portuguese African colonies.

 

Abstracts of presentations (300 words) and biographical notes (250 words) should be sent to: unilateralindependence@gmail.com

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 10 June 2023
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2023
Working language: Portuguese, English and French.
The organizers foresee the publication of the communications.

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

 

Organizing Committee

Aurora Almada e Santos – IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Julião Soares Sousa – CEIS20 — University of Coimbra
Víctor Barros – École des Hautes Études Hispanique et Ibérique–Casa de Velázquez and IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST

 

 

Scientific Committee

Carlos Cardoso – Center of Social Studies Amílcar Cabral
Rui Jorge Semedo – National Institute of Studies and Research
Odete Semedo – National Institute of Studies and Research
Miguel de Barros – Tiniguena, This Land is Ours!
Patrícia Godinho – Federal University of Bahia
P. Khalil Saucier – Bucknell University

 

 

Imagem: 1973, “Aristides Pereira discursando na I Assembleia Nacional Popular da Guiné-Bissau, na região libertada de Madina de Boé”
(Fonte: Fundação Mário Soares / DAC – Documentos Amílcar Cabral)

 

Congress that aims to debate processes of patrimonialization of the memory of political resistance in the 20th century on a global scale. [NEW] Deadline: 7 June 2023

 

The Musealisation of 20th-Century Political Resistance

 

This congress aims to share case studies and deepen the theoretical debate on processes of patrimonialization of the memory of political resistance in the 20th century on a global scale.

The memory of the past is elaborated within the social frameworks that make the present. Over the last decades and years, memory institutions concerning the history of the 20th century have proliferated, as well as studies on processes of patrimonialization that occur in a museological context, considering aspects such as the conservation and production of memory and the archival and curatorial treatment in its technical, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions.

To be held in October in Peniche, the town where the the National Museum Resistance and Freedom is being built, on the site of a former prison of the Portuguese dictatorship of Estado Novo, this congress intends to question the multiple circumstances of what is preserved and what is represented of the political resistance, discussing the relations between this representation and the communities that give meaning to the pieces and the spaces, as well as questioning the role of the museum in its own time as a cultural, scientific, pedagogical, and civic instrument.

The congress intends to bring together papers that focus on museological institutions located in the most diverse contexts, from the Museu Nacional Resistência e Liberdade (Portugal) to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Chile), or the Robben Island Museum (South Africa). We also encourage the presentation of case studies from other European, South American, and African countries, as well as from other continents.

We welcome the submission of papers on other cultural forms of patrimonialization of 20th-century political resistance, such as historical landmarks, toponymy, virtual museums, internet sites, routes, celebrations, and festivals, etc.

Proposals, with a title, an abstract of between 300 and 600 words, and a brief biographical presentation of the proponent, should be sent to sofia.lisboa@campus.fcsh.unl.pt.

Deadline for submissions: 30 May 7 June 2023.

 

 

>> Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

International congress that will explore religious figures and institutions which raised their voices and took action again colonialism and the dictatorship of the Estado Novo.

 

 

Religious Consciences and Colonialism:

Experiences and Legacies

 

Commemorating of the 50th anniversary of Carnation Revolution, the International Conference Religious Consciences and Colonialism: Experiences and Legacies will take place at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Lisbon between 17 and 19 January 2024. The event is organised by the Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto, Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos Internacionais do Instituto Superior das Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos, Institute of Contemporary History of the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Queen’s University Belfast.

Part of the commemoration of the Portuguese revolution, this international conference will explore religious figures and institutions which, through the conscience and actions, raised their voices and took action again colonialism and the dictatorship of the Estado Novo. At the same time it aims at assessing the religious, social and political heritage that exists in the societies formerly colonised by Portugal, particularly in Africa.

 

 

 

Call for papers

 

The forms of religious consciousness – from the local and ancestral to those that arrived in Africa by the hand of the colonists – can contain a synthesis of human history. In the colonial context, religious consciousnesses had to deal with themselves, that is, with their usefulness in shaping the relationship between colonists and the colonised, in multiple colonial situations. Colonialism and the changes of the post-colonial period have called into question the universalism of the message of some religions, particularly those that were the vehicle of so-called Western values, which none the less played a relevant role in the progressive affirmation of the colonised.

In different contexts and under different forms, at the initiative of European and African missionaries, catechisation and conversion were, inadvertently or not, vehicles for creating individualistic and, subsequently, new political consciousness, most often anti-colonial. Even if not oriented towards nationalist struggle, anti-colonial resistance in the name of religious imperatives – preached by African religious – had a significant role in the corrosion of settler certainties. Because of the African handling of religious messages, colonial domination (and also the forms of subjection in force after independence) did not always correspond to the spiritual subalternisation of Africans or the colonised.

Still, religious consciences or visions have not ceased to be instrumentalised, nor have they ceased to be disparaged by nationalist leaders, who, imbued by an unholy faith in their own political slogans, accused them of being a vehicle of alienation and subjection.

After coming under fierce attack from heralds of the new liberating creeds – like ideologies – religious consciences survived political vicissitudes and trials, while ideologies fell heavily. Not infrequently, political leaders pushed ideology aside, exchanging it for pragmatism or authoritarianism, supported, whenever possible and credible, by the invocation of the divine.

Nowadays, as a political trump card in various parts of the world, religious beliefs have conditioned, in multiple forms, political designs in independent Africa, especially in the former Portuguese colonies. If, to some extent, religious beliefs and consciences depend on the contingencies of the drift of societies, they are also based in their historical experience, sometimes against colonialism.

For this International Conference – Religious Consciences in the Face of Colonialism: Experiences and Legacies – we will accept proposals which reveal the multiplicity of religious experiences in the colonial context, and their political and social uses leading to various attitudes, from acceptance of to opposition to the colonial situation.

We will also accept proposals that evaluate religious legacies in post-colonial societies where, frequently, political actors and institutions have tended, implicitly, to replicate procedures similar to the religious ones they yse to criticise, to achieve the imposition of their truths.

*

Paper submissions, in *.docx, between 180 to 200 words, should be sent to religcolon24@mail.com by 1 October 2023.

No registration fee; the costs of participation are at the expense of the participants.

*

Working Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English

 

Thematic axes

• Religious consciences and wars
• Independences and ideologies versus religious beliefs and practices
• Church in support of colonialism – from civilization to Lusotropicalism
• Typologies of religious consciousness in a colonial situation
• Religious criticism of Portuguese colonialism
• Religious consciences and liberation/decolonization wars
• The Portuguese bishops and colonialism
• Portuguese colonialism, faith and independence: the case of Bishop D. Sebastião Soares de Resende
• Liberation movements, churches and religion
• The Church in the transition to independence
• Memories and legacies of religious practices in a colonial context and colonialism in the current churches

 

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

 

Organising committee

 

Augusto Nascimento (CH-ULisboa)
Eric Morier-Genoud (Queen’s University Belfast)
Magdalena Bialoborska Chambel (CH-ULisboa)
André Morgado (secretariado) (CH-ULisboa)

 

Scientific committee

 

Ana Mónica Fonseca (CEI — Iscte-IUL)
Augusto Nascimento (CH-ULisbon)
Carlos Almeida (CH-ULisbon)
Chapane Mutiua (UEM)
Conceição Neto (UAN)
Didier Péclard (Université de Genève)
Eric Morier-Genoud (Queen’s University Belfast)
Éva Sebéstyén (CEAUP)
Eugénia Rodrigues (CH-ULisbon)
Fernando Tavares Pimenta (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Iracema Dulley (PPGAS | UFSCar)
João Miguel Almeida (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
José da Silva Horta (CH-ULisbon)
Marçal Paredes (PUCRS)
Marcelo Bittencourt (NEAF, UFF)
Maria Inácia Rezola (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo (CES-UC)
Natalia Zawiejska (Institute of Religious Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow)
Paulo Fontes (CEHR-UCP)
Pedro Aires Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Ruy Blanes (CRIA ISCTE)
Salvador Salvador Forquilha (IESE)
Teresa Cruz e Silva (UEM)

 

 

International conference that seeks to analyse and assess Elizabeth’s life, times, and legacies across a broad range of disciplines, themes, and topics. Deadline: 30 September

 

Queen Elizabeth II: Life, Times, Legacies

 

The reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II (1952-2022) was the longest so far in the history of the British monarchy. Partly due, without doubt, to its exceptional duration, her seventy-year reign witnessed momentous events with far-reaching consequences, such as the end of the Empire; the decline of Britain on the international political scene; the ‘troubles’ and unrest within the British Isles and the prospect of a DisUnited Kingdom; the emergence and consolidation of popular and youth cultures and the relationship between the Crown and the media, to name but a few. The period is also of particular interest for Anglo-Portuguese Studies, as it raises issues such as the political relations between the two oldest allies during the Salazar/Caetano regime, the official visits, the impact of World War II, decolonisation, and the Revolution of the 25th April 1974, amongst others.

 

Keynote speakers:

João Carlos Espada (IEP, Universidade Católica Portuguesa)
John Darwin (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
Martin Dale (University of Minho)
Pedro Aires Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Philip Murphy (University of London)
Steve Marsh (University of Cardiff)
Teresa Pinto Coelho (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

 

>> Official website <<

 

 

Call for papers

 

This International Conference seeks to analyse and assess Elizabeth’s life, times, and legacies across a broad range of disciplines, themes and topics, such as:

• The British Monarchy
• The British and Other European Monarchies
• Monarchy and National Identity(ies)
• Monarchy and Republic
• British Institutions
• Britain and the Emergence of Popular and Youth Cultures
• Britain and the Welfare State
• Britain in/and Europe
• Britain and Brexit
• Britain and Portugal: The Alliance during Elizabeth II’s Reign
• Britain in/and the World
• Britain and the USA: A Special Relationship?
• The Queen and the European Monarchies
• The Queen: Biographies and Chronicles
• The Queen in Literature
• The Queen in/and the Visual Arts
• The Queen in/and the Media
• Screening the Queen: Cinema and Television
• Staging and Singing the Queen: Theatre and Music
• The Queen and the (Re)Invention of Tradition(s)
• The Queen, Memorabilia, and Merchandising
• The Queen in/and Fashion
• Royal Spaces and Geographies
• The Queen in and out of doors: Sport, Animals, and Pets
• The Queen and her Royal Residences
• The Royal Family: Past, Present (and Future?)
• Other

 

 

Languages: English and/or Portuguese

 

Submissions

The organisers will welcome proposals for 20-minute papers. Submissions should be sent by email to elizabeth2legacy@gmail.com including the title of the paper, an abstract (250-300 words), the author’s data (name, affiliation, contact address) and the author’s bio-note (150 words).

Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2023
Notification of acceptance: 30 November 2023
Deadline for registration: 31 December 2023

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

 

Registration

 

Fees:
Physical (On-site) Presentation: 130€
Online Presentation: 120€
On-site (Physical) Listener: 80€
Online Listener: 70€
Students: 30€
Members of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, CETAPS, IHC, IN2PAST and external supervisors to NOVA FCSH Masters in Teacher Education: Free

All delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodation.

 

 

 

Congress which is an opportunity to take stock of the situation and discuss, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the future of studies on the Portuguese Revolution. Deadline: 10 September

 

Congresso internacional 50 anos do 25 de Abril

 

Cinquenta anos depois, o 25 de Abril e o processo revolucionário de 1974-75 continuam a ser objecto de discussão em várias disciplinas das ciências sociais e das humanidades. Sobretudo nas últimas décadas, os debates em torno da Revolução procuraram ir para além dos estudos pioneiros sobre o processo político e militar, através de múltiplas abordagens que ajudam a compreendê-lo em toda a sua complexidade: as transformações sociais e a participação política de base; os contextos internacionais, nomeadamente no que diz respeito aos processos de luta anti-colonial e à Guerra Fria; as dinâmicas políticas e sociais na sua diversidade regional; a economia política da Revolução; os repertórios de luta e as linguagens escritas, visuais e musicais; o papel da Revolução e da sua memória na história global e na sociedade portuguesa democrática; os processos de patrimonialização, musealização e preservação das memórias; as análises comparativas com outras revoluções e transições para sistemas democráticos.

 

 

Chamada para comunicações

 

A ocasião do cinquentenário surge assim como uma oportunidade para fazer um ponto da situação e discutir, a partir de uma perspectiva interdisciplinar, o futuro dos estudos sobre a Revolução. Neste sentido, o Congresso Internacional 50 anos do 25 de Abril apela à participação de investigadores/as de áreas tão distintas como a sociologia, a história, a economia, a ciência política, as relações internacionais, a antropologia, a história de arte e os estudos artísticos e literários. Privilegiam-se abordagens inovadoras nos âmbitos temáticos acima referidos que contribuam para reforçar o conhecimento deste momento fundador da nossa contemporaneidade.

 

Plano Temático:

Secção I | O derrube da ditadura: A secção I compreende os estudos sobre o Marcelismo e a crise final do regime nas suas dimensões nacional e internacional, incluindo as dinâmicas sociais e políticas geradas em torno Guerra Colonial.

Secção II | A revolução política: A secção II é dedicada à dissolução do aparelho de repressão política, judicial e censório e a responsabilização política, criminal e administrativa dos seus agentes (dissoluções, prisões, saneamentos, interdições, julgamentos), ao processo político revolucionário (as suas diferentes fases entre o 25 de Abril e a aprovação da Constituição de 1976), à Assembleia Constituinte, aos Pactos MFA/Partidos e à Constituição de Abril de 1976, aos partidos políticos e à conquista das liberdades públicas, do sufrágio universal e do direito à greve.

Secção III | A revolução económica e social: A secção III inclui investigação sobre as lutas dos trabalhadores e os órgãos de vontade popular, as lutas dos moradores e a questão da habitação, a reforma agrária e as novas políticas agrárias, as nacionalizações e as estratégias de desenvolvimento económico, as lutas feministas e as organizações das mulheres, as lutas pela diversidade sexual e de género e os seus movimentos, as lutas anti-racistas e os seus movimentos, a população racializada, o ensino e o movimento estudantil.

Secção IV | A revolução cultural: A secção IV versa sobre a cultura no PREC, incluindo a imprensa, o audiovisual (rádio e televisão), a música, o cinema, o teatro, a literatura, a pintura e os murais, o cartaz.

Secção V | A queda do império colonial: A secção V é dedicada à descolonização. Reúne apresentações sobre a situação da Guerra Colonial e as guerras de libertação em 1974, a questão colonial e o poder político e militar em Portugal no processo revolucionário, os movimentos de libertação nacional e o processo de descolonização, os efeitos da descolonização na sociedade portuguesa, a chegada a Portugal de populações das antigas colónias, a situação dos militares africanos integrados nas forças militares portuguesas, o racismo estrutural da sociedade portuguesa.

Secção VI | Processo revolucionário e relações internacionais (1974-1976): A secção VI trata da conjuntura internacional e da política externa dos governos provisórios, das ligações internacionais entre forças políticas e o poder militar, dos apoios internacionais e da intervenção externa no processo revolucionário.

Secção VII | A revolução portuguesa e os processos de transição para a democracia: A secção VII introduz a dimensão comparativa no estudo da Revolução portuguesa. Aborda a temática a partir de reflexões em torno das Revoluções, dos processos de democratização, das convergências e divergências das transições para a democracia.

Secção VIII | As representações da memória política do 25 de Abril: Nesta secção agrupam-se as pesquisas dedicadas aos processos de memorialização do passado e as suas mutações ao longo do tempo, às políticas publicas de memória e às políticas do esquecimento, aos debates das interpretações sobre história e memória em suas múltiplas dimensões e ao comemorativismo.

 

Submissão de propostas 🔗 neste link.

Datas: 2, 3 e 4 de Maio de 2024
Local: Reitoria da Universidade de Lisboa
Os interessados/as devem submeter a sua proposta através do formulário até dia 10 de Setembro de 2023.

 

 

Comissão Organizadora

 

Maria Inácia Rezola, Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril / IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Fernando Rosas, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
José Neves, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Miguel Cardina, CES – Universidade de Coimbra
Rita Almeida de Carvalho, ICS – Universidade de Lisboa
José Lopes Cordeiro, Universidade do Minho

 

Comissão Científica

 

Álvaro Garrido, CEIS20 – Universidade de Coimbra
António Costa Pinto, ICS – Universidade de Lisboa
Fernando Rosas, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
José Lopes Cordeiro, Universidade do Minho
José Neves, IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Luís Trindade, CEIS20 – Universidade de Coimbra
Luísa Tiago de Oliveira, CIES – ISCTE
Manuel Loff, Universidade do Porto, IHC – NOVA FCSH
Maria da Conceição Meireles Pereira, CITCEM
Maria Fernanda Rolo, Pólo do CEF na NOVA FCSH
Maria Inácia Rezola, Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril / IHC – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST
Miguel Cardina, CES – Universidade de Coimbra
Rui Bebiano, Centro de Documentação 25 de Abril – Universidade de Coimbra
Sérgio Campo Matos, CHUL – FLUL
Sílvia Roque, CES – Universidade de Coimbra e Universidade de Évora
Sónia Vespeira de Almeida, CRIA – NOVA FCSH
Rita Rato, Museu do Aljube
Luísa Teotónio Pereira, CIDAC • CULTRA, Cooperativa Culturas do Trabalho e Socialismo

 

 

Fifth network conference of the International Network for Theory of History, gathering theorists of history and historians of historiography from around the world. Deadline: 18 September 2023

 

 

History & Responsibility:

Doing History in Times of Conflicting Political Demands

5th network conference of the International Network for Theory of History

 

 

The International Network for Theory of History (INTH) is pleased to announce that its fifth network conference will take place on 22, 23 and 24 May 2024 and will be hosted by the Institute of Contemporary History at NOVA University Lisbon. The goal of the conference is to gather theorists of history and historians of historiography from around the world, and foster the exchange of ideas, questions, and resources. This year’s overarching theme is historical responsibility.

The writing of history has always involved ethical concerns. But the past few decades have witnessed increasing and widespread public discussions about the responsibility of history and historians in society. Perhaps the most famous examples of this are the debates surrounding historical wrongs and their relation to contemporary injustices and inequalities. Think, for instance, of the initiatives that seek to address the role of historical slavery in contemporary racism or the continuing influence of colonial legacies on (global) power relations. The idea of historical wrongs has also been raised in relation to the impact of past pollution on climate change, or the influence of institutional child abuse on contemporary socio-economic problems faced by indigenous communities.

Historians and their work have often been under the spotlight in such discussions: while some wish to see (academic) historiography as an important resource to back-up and legitimate claims for historical redress, others see it as having been neglectful of, or even (in)directly involved in, historical wrongs. Historians themselves have expressed conflicting views about what the ethical commitments of the profession should be.

The current proliferation of debates about the link between history and contemporary injustices provide an opportune moment to reflect on the relationship between history and responsibility more generally. This relationship is undoubtedly complex, ambiguous, and contested. Many historians have warned that engagements with the past do not inherently serve justice or lead to morally responsible behavior (Minow 1999; Torpey 2001). Old critiques of the blind belief in historical progress or teleological conceptions of historical time have also unsettled the idea that historians and/or history itself can be the agents of “history’s judgment” (Scott 2020). In the field of memory studies as well, scholars have pointed out how the “moral remembrance” of dark pasts does not automatically lead to an enlightened “good citizenship” or increased respect for other cultures and noted that it sometimes even produces an entirely opposite attitude (David 2020; Gensburger and Lefranc 2020).

Despite these criticisms, many have refused to entirely give up on the idea that history connects to (moral) responsibility (Cotkin, 2008). If there is not even a weak moral motive involved in our engagements with the past, why bother studying history at all? In any case, many policymakers and professional historians appear to believe that engaging with history can lead people to become more ethically responsible.

Of course, many of the issues raised in these recent debates are not new. Historians have always reflected on what can be considered (ir)responsible ways of doing historical research or writing history. Recently, however, a genuine ‘ethical turn’ in our field appears to have gained a new momentum. We now hear calls for the rehabilitation of value judgment about the past (Bloxham 2020), explicit pleas for the creation of an ethical code for a ‘Responsible History’ (De Baets 2009), and an increasing focus on epistemic virtues (Paul 2022), epistemic justice (Domanska 2021), or the figure of the moral witness (Tozzi 2012).

 

 

Call for papers

 

For the 2024 edition of the INTH Network conference we invite contributors to reflect on the entangled issues of historical responsibility and responsible history. We propose the following guiding questions:

1. (How) are we responsible to history?

• How can we conceptualize ‘historical responsibility’ and how does it relate to historical ‘guilt’ or ‘debt’?
• (How) can responsibility be transmitted over generations? Is it typically a collective affair or does it primarily stick to particular individuals?
• Can we ‘owe’ something to the past or the dead?
• Are there temporal (or other) limits as to how far back one can go in history for the purpose of redeeming it or holding people responsible?
• Can grave historical injustices be ‘superseded’ by changed circumstances in the present (e.g. composition of populations, changed socio-economic relations or political systems)?
• Should priority be given to so-called ‘enduring injustices,’ (Spinner-Halev, 2012) whereby historical grievances have clear ties to contemporary injustices, or should historical wrongs be addressed independently of their legacy in the present?

2. (How) can we write responsible/responsibilizing histories?

• What kind of engagement with the past can help to foster a democratic political culture, address enduring injustices, or counter ultra nationalist, neo-fascist and other extremist political tendencies?
• What kind of historical narrations or other types of historical representation can be considered (ir)responsible in relation to particular contexts?
• Is the prime responsibility of professional historians a deontological one relating to academic procedures and source criticism, or can particular situations trump these and create other priorities and types of responsibility?
• Does a focus on historical responsibility always lead to forms of ‘presentism’ and is this a problem?
• Which political or socio-cultural circumstances are detrimental to the production of a responsible/responsibilizing history?
• How do the issues of historical responsibility and responsible history figure in post- and de-colonial approaches to history?

Other Topics

The main focus of this conference is on history and responsibility. Yet, as was the case for the previous meetings of the INTH, we also welcome papers on other relevant topics in the fields of Theory of History and History of Historiography, including (but not limited to):

• Conceptual history
• Epistemics of history
• Experience/presence
• Hermeneutics
• Historical time
• History and mourning/trauma
• History as science (causation, explanation, lawfulness…)
• Narrativism
• Politics of history and memory
• Public/popular history
• Substantive/speculative philosophy of history
• The history of historiography
• Theory of history didactics
• The relations between history and other academic fields
• History outside academia

 

 

Practical information

 

Those interested in taking part in the conference are invited to send in an abstract of 300-500 words either in docx or pdf format to inthlisbon@gmail.com by 18 September 2023. Please name your file following this structure: Surname_Title of the abstract.
We will consider both proposals for panel sessions and individual papers. Panel proposals should include a panel abstract, a commentator and a chair, and abstracts for the contributing papers (all following the 300-500 words limit per abstract).

Please visit the conference website for further information.

The organizing committee is led by Berber Bevernage (Ghent University), Felipe Brandi (NOVA University Lisbon), José Neves (NOVA University Lisbon), Luis Trindade (NOVA University Lisbon), Kenan Van De Mieroop-Al Bahrani (Leiden University) and Eva Willems (Ghent University). Please use the conference email address for all correspondence.

 

>> 📎 Download the call for papers (PDF) <<

 

References

 

Bloxham, Donald (2020). History and Morality (Oxford University Press).
Booth, W. James (2019). Memory, Historic Injustice, and Responsibility (Routledge).
Cotkin, George (2008). “History’s Moral Turn.” Journal of the History of Ideas 69, no. 2 (April 4, 2008): 293–315
David, Lea (2020). The Past Can’t Heal Us. (Cambridge University Press).
De Baets, Antoon. (2009) Responsible History (Berghahn Books).
Domańska, Ewa. “Prefigurative Humanities.” History and Theory 60, no. 4 (2021): 141–58.
Gensburger, Sarah, and Sandrine Lefranc (2020). Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn From the Past? (Palgrave Macmillan).
Minow, Martha (1999). Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. (Beacon Press).
Paul, Herman. Historians’ Virtues: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Scott, Joan Wallach (2020). On the Judgment of History. (Columbia University Press).
Spinner-Halev, Jeff (2012). Enduring Injustice (Cambridge University Press).
Waldron, Jeremy. (1992) ‘Superseding Historic Injustice,’ Ethics 103, no. 1: 4–28.
Torpey, John. (2001) ‘“Making Whole What Has Been Smashed”: Reflections on Reparations,’ Journal of Modern History 73, no. 2: 333–58.
Tozzi, Verónica. (2012), ‘The Epistemic and Moral Role of Testimony,’ History and Theory 51, no. 1: 1–17.