Fred Wilson, Mask from The Colonial Collection www.ucsf.edu/artucsf/port/slide2.html

Coordination:

• Manuela Ribeiro Sanches
• João Ferreira Duarte

(2003-2006) - Concluded

"Der Amerikaner, der den Kolumbus zuerst entdeckte, machte eine böse Entdeckung."
[The American who discovered Columbus first, made an evil discovery.] Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.

The original project was conceived as a proposal to rethink on an interdisciplinary basis representations of Europe and its relation to non-European spaces, as they came to be fixed, interpreted and contested in the last decades, namely through a post-colonial revision of historical, literary, and anthropological canonical approaches. “Postmodern” anthropology, cultural studies, and post-colonial studies have played a major part in this revisioning. The former have also exerted a strong influence in literary and comparative studies, as well as translation studies.

Such issues and discussions have been mainly centred in English-speaking countries and their related experiences. The project thus intended to widen up the debate and translate these issues into specific disciplinary and national contexts. Debates on the post-colonial question, the role of anthropology, the place of and specific developments in literary studies – namely when framed through the study of national literatures – cannot be taken for granted but have to be contextualized into precise local situations. The role of Portugal and its colonies, the question of national identity, representations of “Empire” and hybridity accordingly need to be set against the background of the mentioned approaches, in order to take into account the specificity of Portuguese colonial history.

The project was divided in four parts, which overlap and complement each other.

A one-day conference: ACT 10. Disciplinary Boundaries and Diasporas. Literature, History, Art and Cinema in Post-Colonial Contexts” (December 9th, 2004)

CFP: Post-colonial and cultural studies are less characterized by a new object of study than by an epistemological shift, which allows a renewed focusing on classic subjects of disciplines and knowledges. The conference aims at discussing how far this shift influences contemporary representations of Otherness and “Europe”/ the “West”, in diverse disciplinary fields, thus promoting a debate that takes into account, but does not limit itself, to Portuguese-speaking countries. Issues such as the African diaspora, transnational flows of information and processes of transculturation, their possible tensions with national historical narratives and processes of emancipation, as well as questions of cultural identity should thus play a central role in the discussion.

Participants:

• Manthia Diawara (NYU)
• Robert Stam (NYU)
• Zita Nunes (U. Maryland)
• Dipesh Chakrabarty (U. Chicago)

The volume Connecting Peoples.
Transcultural and Transdisciplinary Identities containing the conference proceedings was published.

1. A reader (Deslocalizar a “Europa’. Antropologia, Arte, Literatura e história na pós-colonialidade) , ed. Manuela Ribeiro Sanches), assembling some representative approaches and debates on the subject. The selection was not be circumscribed to post-colonial studies, but also considered other similar or complementary approaches, derived from anthropology, cultural studies, historical studies that have contributed to the displacement of “Europe” or the “West”.
   
   
2. A volume including responses by Portuguese-speaking scholars to the issues addressed in the reader (“Portugal não é um país pequeno”. Contar o Império na pós-colonialidade , ed. Manuela Ribeiro Sanches). The articles should be representative whether of the reception of post-colonial studies, postmodern anthropology, cultural studies, translation studies, or of area studies that have contributed in a parallel way to the topics addressed (Literary Studies, Comparative Studies, Anthropology, Art History, Ethnomusicology, African Studies).
   
   
3. A volume on translation studies and ethnography (Circulações: por entre etnografia e tradução, ed. João Ferreira Duarte, Forthcoming 2007.) focusing on the current interface between the two disciplines that deal with the encounter with the Other and presenting ongoing research. The volume is meant to show the key role played by the concept of “cultural translation” in this theoretical context.

The project has also been framed by post-graduate courses on these and related topics, thus furthering research in the areas under consideration.

Research Team

• Coordinators:
  - Manuela Ribeiro Sanches (Centre for Comparative Studies, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa)
  - João Ferreira Duarte (Centre for Comparative Studies, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa)
  
  
• Translators/researchers:
  - Carlos Branco Mendes (Post-Graduate Student - Depant, Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa)
  - Fernando Clara (Department of German, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
  - Leonor Martins (Post-Graduate Student - Department of Anthropology, Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa)
  - Marina Santos (Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Translation Course, Universidade Lusófona)
  
  
• Advisors:
  - James Clifford (University of California, Santa Cruz)
  - Mary Louise Pratt (New York University)