Culture — Power, Mediations, and Arts

Coordination: Rita Luís and Catarina Laranjeiro

The Culture Research Group investigates various cultural practices, namely cinema, theatre, literature, journalism and photography, benefiting from the development of Cultural History and Cultural Studies, in dialogue with Artistic Studies and Communication Sciences. It values the political, economic and social power of cultural practices, analysing their importance for the formation of nationalisms and colonial imaginaries, for the development of consumption and capitalism, and for processes of social distinction or resistance and emancipation.

At the same time, the history of each of these cultural practices is researched in its relative autonomy. The group’s researchers pay particular attention to the methodological, ethical and theoretical challenges posed by the nature of the sources they work with — image, text, orality, materialities — and by mediating devices and institutions such as the museum, the press or the school. It also discusses the different ways of making sense of and being sensitive to the past, analysing the limits and virtues of various memorialistic practices, particularly those of an artistic nature, and contributing to the history of history writing and its discipline.

The group supports and promotes the publication of the scientific journals Práticas da História – Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past and Aniki: Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento, promotes the initiative “Passados em Cena” [Past on Stage] and cooperates with institutions and cultural facilities such as Portuguese Cinematheque, Culturgest, Ephemera, Tate Modern or the Bairro Alto Theatre.

Gathering mostly historians, the group also include curators, directors, documentary makers, photographers, and playwrights.