Meet the new team

by | Apr 3, 2024 | Experiences

It’s April in Porto. It’s cold and it’s raining cats and dogs. At CETAPS, a group of junior researchers in Anglo-American Studies is organizing and streamlining a few online projects related to it. Both the Alimentopia project – an archive for a multidisciplinary research project on utopian visions of the future conditions of food production and consumption – and the ARUS Digital Repository – a major collection of critical bibliography on utopian studies originally compiled by Lyman Tower Sargent – are being worked on. There is a lot to be done, but there is a team of four young master’s students between the ages of 23 and 25 hammering away at it. Below, we present to you the members of this Fantastic Four.

Joana Pinela is currently a second year student on the Anglo-American Studies (AAS) Master’s Program and she is writing a thesis on the poetry of Diane Di Prima. She took a bachelor’s degree in Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Porto and she has been a volunteer English teacher, teaching mostly adults. She is especially passionate about North-American literature.

Joel Faustino is a first year student at the AAS Master’s Program. He has a bachelor’s degree in Translation (German and English) from the University of Porto and has worked as a teacher in public and private schools in Portugal. He is fascinated by aesthetics and North-American history.

Lile Kobaliani is from Georgia and is in her first year of the AAS Master’s Program. She studied English Language and Literature at LCC International University at Klaipėda, Lithuania. She has worked as a writer before, and has a passion for literature and cinema.

Raquel Souza is from Brazil and she is taking her first year in the AAS Master’s Program. She studied journalism at Universidade Lusófona do Porto, and has done volunteer English teaching work as well. Despite not having studied literature, she came to her master’s because she is interested in North-American culture and how it relates to cinema.

These will be the people who will contribute to updating the Digital Lab blog for the foreseeable future. We are hoping we can bring something new to it.

 

My experience at the CETAPS Digital Lab

by | Jan 29, 2024 | Experiences

During an almost one-year hiatus between my Bachelor’s degree, and a Masters, the opportunity arose to collaborate on a project titled “Anglophone Travellers in Portugal”, at the CETAPS Digital Lab.

The project consisted of exploring pre-existing categories and contents belonging to works related to travels made in Portugal, written by Anglophone explorers during the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.

Exploring Portugal through their lens, being able to discover what fascinated them at the time, and which geographical points they travelled to was quite interesting.

Most of the data was collected into two databases, which I extensively worked with and researched on. Learning how to work with the information collected from these works throughout several decades turned into one of my longest, yet most rewarding projects I have ever contributed towards.

With the help of my advisor, Luciano Moreira, I learnt how to work with the databases in “R” programming, creating interactive maps of Portugal and the world, so that we could visualize and trace the most sought travel routes used by those anglophone travellers between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.

If someone would have told me before I started at CETAPS that I would one day be able to apply programming onto projects related to literature, I would have thought that the idea was funny, but now I understand how useful it can be.

By embarking on this project, I gained a deeper understanding of Digital Humanities, learning new concepts and discovering very compelling debates about topics within social sciences. I was also able to work with impeccable colleagues, each with their own fascinating and engaging backgrounds. Although my official position within the Digital Lab was as a collaborator, I felt very integrated in the group, and I hope I will still be of help, whenever I am needed.

This time has also helped me decide what it is I actually want to do in the future, as I was unsure if I wanted to either pursue a Masters in Literature, or try something outside of my comfort zone. I am very glad to say I ended up going with my second option, as I decided that in a society that is becoming more and more “digital”, my interests lie within how communication will be affected by this.

For these reasons, I decided to enroll (and ended up being accepted) into a Master’s programme in Communication, Culture and Technologies of Information at the ISCTE University (University Institute of Lisbon), which will begin in September (https://www.iscte-iul.pt/course/13/master-msc-in-communication-culture-and-information-technology ).

Even though departures are sad, I am grateful I had this time to evolve academically, and that I was able to work in a challenging and excellent environment.

 

 

Research Opportunities – until February 1st, 2024

by | Jan 19, 2024 | Research Opportunities

One (1) Research grant (BI) for a PhD student enrolled in the exercise of scientific research activities, within the scope of the «Digital Laboratory» project taking place at CETAPS. Scientific Field: Digital Media, Multimedia, Communication Sciences. Admission Requirements: All individuals holding the following requirements may apply for this scholarship, pending on the submission of the corresponding documents:

  1. Master’s degree completed in one of the scientific areas relevant to the project or any related areas *;
  2. Be a student enrolled in a PhD from a higher education institution; or hold a doctoral degree and be enrolled in a non-degree course integrated in an educational project of a higher education institution, developed in connection with one or more R&D units, which must be certified and proven before the celebration of the contract;
  3. Language skills in the English language (level B2 referring to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, as a minimum);
  4. Proven research skills in the scientific areas relevant to the project.

Five (5) research grant (BI) for students enrolled in a Master’s Degree for the exercise of scientific research activities within the scope of the project “Junior Researchers in Anglo-American Studies” taking place at CETAPS. Scientific Field: Humanities and Social Sciences. Admission Requirements: All individuals fitting the following requirements may apply for this scholarship, pending on the submission of the corresponding documents:

  1. Degree completed in a scientific area relevant to the scholarship or related areas (to be proven before the act of contracting);
  2. Be a student enrolled in a master’s degree from a higher education institution (to be proven before the act of contracting).

One (1) Research Initiation Grant (BII) to carry out R&D activities within the scope of the “Digital Laboratory” project taking place at CETAPS Scientific Field(s): Digital Media, Multimedia, Computing, Information Science, Data Science. Admission requirements All individuals of legal age who have the following documented requirements can apply for this scholarship:

  1. Be enrolled in a bachelor’s degree or in the 180 credits corresponding to the first six curricular semesters of work of a master’s degree integrated in one of the scientific fields relevant to this project or related fields (requirement to be proven until the act of hiring);
  2. Have not previously benefited from a research grant directly or indirectly funded by FCT.

One (1) Research Initiation Grant (BII) to carry out R&D activities within the scope of the “Digital Laboratory” project taking place at CETAPS Scientific Field(s): Communication Sciences, Digital Media, Multimedia. Admission requirements All individuals of legal age who have the following documented requirements can apply for this scholarship:

  1. Be enrolled in a bachelor’s degree course or in the 180 credits corresponding to the first six curricular semesters of work of a master’s degree integrated in one of the scientific fields of this project or related fields (requirement to be proven until the act of contracting);
  2. Have not previously benefited from a research grant directly or indirectly funded by FCT.
Digital Humanities: TENT-ative Definitions and the New Modalities of Scholarship”

Digital Humanities: TENT-ative Definitions and the New Modalities of Scholarship”

by | Jun 15, 2023 | Events

Location: July 5 – 10:00-12:00 – Anfiteatro Nobre (FLUP)

Speaker: Dr. Craig Saper, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Estados Unidos da América
(https://llc.umbc.edu/saper/)

Summary: The lecture will open the conversation and cover what digital humanities means to different audiences and how it is connected to both contemporary theories of post-print-literacy and to the history and future of reading, scholarship, and publishing. The lecture and presentation will be suited for graduate and undergraduate students as well as colleagues and researchers interested in these areas.

Bio: Professor Craig Saper (csaper@umbc.edu) is the Director of the Language, Literacy, and Culture Doctoral Program at UMBC in Baltimore, Maryland, US. He is the author of The Amazing Adventures of Bob Brown (2016), Intimate Bureaucracies (2012), Networked Art (2001), Artificial Mythologies (1997). He has co-edited scholarly collections on: Electracy; Imaging Place; Drifts; Mapping Culture Multimodally; and edited and introduced six critical editions by a reading machine inventor, Bob Brown, including five with Roving Eye Press: The Readies; Words; Gems; 1450-1950; and Houdini (http://rovingeyepress.umbc.edu/). In 2020 Saper co-edited, introduced, and annotated the contributors’ section of the 1931 Readies for Bob Brown’s Machine: A Critical Facsimile Edition with Edinburgh University Press. He has published chapters and articles on digital culture and built readies.org. He co-curated TypeBound (on typewriter and sculptural poetry), and was the co-founder of folkvine.org. Later in July 2023, he will present full-dome poetic projections at the Electronic Literature Organization in Coimbra, Portugal.

Digital Lab