Anglophone Cultures and History

Description

Anglophone Cultures and History Area

Leader: Gabriela Gândara Terenas

 

The Anglophone Cultures and History Research Area is devoted to the study of British and American Cultures and is divided into two complementary strands: Research Strand A) Culture, Science and the Media and Research Strand B) American Intersections.
Strand A) (convener: Gabriela Gândara Terenas) addresses and fosters the examination of multiple links between Science and the Humanities from an intercultural perspective and their representation in different media. Confronting and comparing scientific and humanistic discourses, the research strand analyses the different strategies employed in the representation, dissemination and popularization of Science, particularly in fictional narratives and in the Arts, attempting, in this way, to establish how far the comparison of different forms of discursivity can contribute towards the study of the history of Science, Visual Culture and Literature in Anglophone countries. The multiple links between Culture and Science are also studied according to their representation in different forms of contemporary media, namely television, cinema and the new media. It involves the exploration of different fields of research, such as the role played by a set of television series produced by the BBC as powerful canonical disseminators of Anglophone cultures; the importance of television, in general, as a propagator of Anglophone literature and the cinema; and the role of transmedia storytelling to diverse audiences within Anglophone cultures, interpreted as the representation of different storyworlds through multiple media. Researchers examine selected texts, mainly from traditional literature to contemporary media, including novels, short stories, plays, films, television productions, graphic novels and digital literature as interconnected arenas of human experience and culture. The strand has its own online data basis, entitled “Bridges between Fiction and Science in the 21st  Century” the main aim of which is to provide as much relevant information as possible about fictional narratives originally written in English and published for the first time in the 21 st  century, dealing with scientific issues in one way or another, which were adapted to different media.
Specifically with regard to the periodical press, a new research project was launched in 2022 entitled “Cross-Cultural Anglo-Portuguese Discourses and the Press” which has already its own database:  https://cetapsrepository.letras.up.pt/collections/28599715-0efa-41a1-a8ba-c80f96877183 The principal aim of the Project is to carry out a critical analysis of the discourse of the twentieth- century Portuguese and British press to assess how far the confrontation of different narratives and portrayal strategies can contribute towards the study of intercultural relations between the two countries as well as assisting in (de)constructing the many cultural images which have played a role in changing and hierarchising the two cultures.

Strand B)  (convener: Teresa Botelho) aims to advance the understanding of cultural realities in the United States from a broad thematic and interdisciplinary perspective, examining how questions of place, identity and transnational interdependencies intersect in the mapping of the ever-changing and multilayered American imaginary.

 

Forthcoming Activities

(strands A and B)

 

A) Organisation of Conferences and Colloquia

Imagining Extinction in Video Games: An International Symposium (April 2024)

International Colloquium: Fictionalisations of Science in the Anglophone World (2024-28)

Internacional Conference: Victorian and American Myths in Videogames (April 2025)

Internacional Conference: American and War (80th anniversary of the end of WWII and 130th anniversary of the end of the Civil War) (2025)

International Conference: America at 250 (250th anniversary of Independence) (2026)

International Symposium: America On the Road (70th anniversary of publication): Mobility/ Immobility and Place; Road narratives; Petro-culture (2027)

International Symposium: Native–American Renaissance and after (60 years after the publication of The House Made of Dawn, Scott Momaday) (2028)

International Conference: Woodstock at 60:  The history and aesthetics of American counter-cultures and the imaging of Other Worlds (2029)

B) Courses

Permanent Seminar : Victorian and American Myths in Video Games (2024-2028)

Permanent Seminar  (Spring Sessions) 2025 – Theme: American Wars in Multiple Media ( Films, Televisual Projects, Visual Culture,  Music)

Permanent Seminar  (Spring Sessions) 2026 – Theme: American Literary Identities/ Transnationalism

Permanent Seminar  (Spring Sessions) 2027 – Theme: Mobility and Energy Humanities ; American Petro-fiction

Permanent Seminar  (Spring Sessions) 2028 – Theme: “Survivance”:  Filmic and Literary Narratives

Permanent Seminar  (Spring Sessions) 2029 – Theme: : The 60th anniversary of Ursula Le Guin´s The Left Hand of Darkness and American Utopias

C) Publications

Literature and Science (21st Century): An Anthology (2028)

Members & Collaborators

I) Strand A (Convener: Gabriela Gândara Terenas NOVA FCSH):

Aline Ferreira (Universidade de Aveiro)

Ana Rita Brettes (PhD Student/NOVA FCSH)

Ana Rita Padeira (Universidade Aberta)

Cátia Ferreira (Universidade Católica)

Cidalia Barbosa (PhD Student/NOVA FCSH)

David Glyn Evans

Fernando Clara (NOVA FCSH)

Filipe Furtado (NOVA FCSH)

Greg Lynall (University of Liverpool)

Iolanda Ramos (NOVA FCSH)

Isabel Capeloa Gil (Universidade Católica)

Jéssica Bispo (PhD Student/NOVA FCSH)

João Paulo Ascenso Pereira da Silva (NOVA FCSH)

Kathleen Calado (PhD Student/NOVA FCSH)

Larysa Shotropa (ILNOVA)

Maria da Conceição Castel-Branco (NOVA FCSH)

Maria de Jesus Crespo Relvas (Universidade Aberta)

Maria João Brito (PhD Student)

Maria do Rosário Lupi Bello (Universidade Aberta)

Miguel Alarcão (NOVA FCSH)

Ricardo Marques

Rui Mateus (PhD Student/NOVA FCSH)

Teresa Pereira (NOVA FCSH)

 

II) Strand B (Convener: Teresa Botelho, NOVA FCSH):

Maria Teresa Castilho (FLUP)

Isabel Oliveira (NOVA FCSH/CEAUL)

Ana Figueira (PhD Sudent/NOVA FCSH)

Jaqueline Pierazzo (PhD Student/ FLUP)

Natália Telega Soares (PhD Student/NOVA FCSH)

Susana Costa (PhD Student)

CETAPS