Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture / Tagus Press - UMass Dartmouth

03/10/2026

Dear Friends and Colleagues, including the Younger Colleagues,

Please find attached the announcement for a lecture sponsored by the UMass Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies / Tagus Press @ UMass Press and the Department of Portuguese. On Tuesday, March 10, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast / 8:30 p.m. in Portugal, Martinho Soares of the University of Coimbra will deliver “Pulsação verdejante: O simbolismo da natureza na poesia de Daniel Faria ou a poesia como biossemiose.” Q&A can be in English.

This online event, postponed after a mammoth snowstorm—or, in my unscientific taxonomy, a Category Two snow hurricane—promises a meditation on poetry, nature, and the living grammar by which language and world breathe through one another. In ecocritical terms, Daniel Faria’s work does not merely describe nature; it listens to it and sometimes lets nature answer.

We are especially proud that this lecture is organized by Professor Patrícia Vieira, the Spring 2026 Hélio and Amélia Pedroso / Luso-American Foundation (FLAD) Endowed Chair in Portuguese Studies at UMass Dartmouth. Professor Vieira, a Harvard PhD and distinguished scholar at the University of Coimbra, exemplifies the rigor and generosity that make this chair such a gift to the betterment of our society. The UMass Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies / Tagus Press @ UMass Press and the Department of Portuguese remain grateful to Hélio and Amélia Pedroso and to FLAD, whose support enables teaching and learning at the highest level in Southeastern Massachusetts and, as this lecture demonstrates, globally.

The hour is admittedly kinder to Europe’s post-work composure than to the still-laboring East Coast of North America, and kinder still than to the West Coast, where lunch may yet be claiming its rights. Nor should Coimbra time imagine itself the sole measure of Portuguese temporality, since Ponta Delgada, with full Atlantic dignity, keeps its own honorable clock. Accordingly, I propose a serious intercontinental competition: let us see whether Europe (the U.K. included) or North America (Canada and Mexico included) produces the larger audience. For the sake of plural democracy, other continents are warmly invited to join; just write to me, and you are in, guaranteed.

One final note: on Tuesday afternoon, March 31, 2026, Boston time, Professor Vieira will also organize the colloquium “Water Cultures in the Portuguese-speaking World” at the splendid New Bedford Whaling Museum. All documented attendees of the panels will be invited to a thematic dinner. Not to be missed, dearest friends, not to be missed. More soon.

Cordially,

Viktor Mendes
Interim Director
UMass Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies / Tagus Press @ UMass Press

03/09/2026

With Plataforma9 – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉 NAILED IT, Folks!

03/07/2026

Younger Colleagues: This is 4 u!

III Congresso Internacional de Jovens Investigadores em Literatura Portuguesa recebe propostas até junho de 2026

A Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, em parceria com o Grupo "Literatura e Cultura Portuguesas" do CLEPUL da Universidade de Lisboa e o Grupo "Entregéneros: Literatura e Hibridismo" do CLLC da Universidade de Aveiro, organiza o III Congresso Internacional de Jovens Investigadores em Literatura Portuguesa, subordinado ao tema (Auto)biografias, (Auto)ficções e Demais Vidas. O encontro realiza-se em Bari, Itália, nos dias 24 e 25 de setembro de 2026.

Saber mais: https://plataforma9.com/congressos/iii-congresso-jovens-investigadores-literatura-portuguesa-bari-2026.htm

02/25/2026

Let’s go!

II Congresso Internacional em Homenagem a Judith Teixeira e Outras Artistas Transgressoras. No Centenário da Publicação de Nua – Poemas de Bizâncio

Tendo a escritora portuguesa como motivo, o II Congresso Internacional em Homenagem a Judith Teixeira e Outras Artistas Transgressoras – No Centenário da Publicação de Nua – Poemas de Bizâncio realizar-se-á na Faculdade de Ciências e Letras da UNESP, campus de Araraquara, nos dias 28, 29 e 30 de abril de 2026, dando continuidade ao I congresso internacional em homenagem à autora, realizado em Lisboa, em 2015, quando da publicação dos inéditos judithianos numa edição preparada por Cláudia Pazos Alonso e Fabio Mario da Silva.

Aceitam-se propostas que versem sobre qualquer tema referente à obra de Judith Teixeira ou de outra intelectual/artista, moderna ou contemporânea, de qualquer nacionalidade, que se revele transgressora na criação artística e/ou literária.

Prazo de envio das propostas: até 30 de março de 2026.

Coordenação: Renata Soares Junqueira (UNESP), Eduardo Soczek Mendes (UFPR), Claudia Barbieri (UFRRJ) e Fabio Mario da Silva (UFRPE)

Saiba mais: https://plataforma9.com/congressos/2-congresso-internacional-homenagem-judith-teixeira-outras-artistas-transgressoras.htm

02/23/2026

Achtung!! O sol faz mal à pele.

02/10/2026

Shall we go?

O colóquio internacional Cartografias do Inferno Luso-Afro-Brasileiro reúne, em Paris, investigadoras e investigadores interessados em explorar os arquivos, silêncios e reinvenções da literatura erótica em língua portuguesa. Interrogando classificações como “erótico”, “pornográfico” ou “obsceno” e analisando políticas de visibilidade, circulação e poder, este encontro - a decorrer nas universidades Sorbonne Nouvelle e Sorbonne Université nos dias 19 e 20 de outubro de 2026 -aceita propostas que contribuam para (re)construir uma biblioteca erótica plural, crítica e transnacional.

Saiba mais:
https://plataforma9.com/congressos/coloquio-internacional-cartografias-do-inferno-luso-afro-brasileiro.htm

02/06/2026

Let’s go!

10/22/2025

As the main sponsor of this two-day international colloquium, the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture/Tagus Press warmly invites you to attend!

UMass Dartmouth to Host International Colloquium on Portuguese Migration and Mill Work in New England

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will host an international colloquium titled “Portuguese Migration and Mill Work in New England: Past, Present, and Future of Portuguese American Studies” on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25 in the Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room.

This two-day event will assess the contributions of the recently published volume Migration, Mill Work, and Portuguese Communities in New England, edited by Cristiana Bastos, Bela Feldman-Bianco, and Miguel Moniz (Tagus Press, 2024), while exploring future directions of research in Portuguese American studies.

A century after the publication of Donald R. Taft’s controversial Two Portuguese Communities in New England (Columbia University Press, 1923), participants will present and discuss the struggles, encounters, and achievements of Portuguese and Portuguese Americans under the pressures of upward mobility, racialized tensions, the politics of assimilation and multiculturalism, and labor and ethnic revival movements.

Sponsored by the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives and the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture/Tagus Press, this event underscores UMass Dartmouth’s ongoing leadership in advancing Portuguese American scholarship and cultural heritage.

The program begins on Friday, October 24, with breakfast at 9:00 a.m., followed by opening remarks and two morning sessions: Setting the Context, featuring Cristiana Bastos, and Portuguese Spaces in Urban New England, featuring Rose Rodrigues, Graça Índias Cordeiro, Paula Celeste Gomes Noversa, and Gray Fitzsimons. Afternoon sessions include Narrating Portuguese Lives, moderated by Antonio Ladeira, with presentations by Carmen Ramos Villar, Silvia Oliveira, and Frank Sousa, and a panel on the Politics of Portuguese American Communities, featuring Miguel Moniz, Daniela Melo, and Camilo Viveiros. The day will conclude with closing remarks from Cristiana Bastos and Caroline Brettell, followed by dinner from 5 to 7 p.m.

On Saturday, October 25, the colloquium will open with remarks by Bela Feldman-Bianco, followed by a screening and discussion of the award-winning ethnographic documentary Saudade (Documentary Educational Resources, 1991, 57’)—one of the outcomes of the Portuguese Oral History Project, founded by Feldman-Bianco when she was University Professor of Portuguese Studies at Southeastern Massachusetts University (now UMass Dartmouth). A roundtable discussion and lunch will conclude the event.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is kindly requested. Please RSVP to Marlene Roberge at [email protected].

The colloquium is organized by Mario Pereira (UMass Dartmouth), in collaboration with Bela Feldman-Bianco (Universidade Estadual de Campinas) and Cristiana Bastos (University of Lisbon).

____________
Viktor Mendes. Interim Director, UMassD’s Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture / Tagus Press.

06/19/2025

In partnership with the Government of the Azores, Tagus Press announces the publication of _In America, I Discovered I Was European_ by Natália Correia, edited by Mario Pereira, translated by Katharine F. Baker and Emanuel Melo, and introduced by Onésimo T. Almeida.

It was said with reason that Natália Correia lived one of the most productive and flamboyant lives in the history of Portuguese culture. In America, I Discovered I Was European is Correia’s account of her first visit at the age of twenty-six to the United States in June 1950. It was a historic month, bracketed by Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s denunciation of McCarthyism and the outbreak of the Korean conflict. Correia visited Boston, coastal Maine, New Bedford, MA, New York City, and Washington, DC. She mingled with intellectual and political figures, visited art museums, frequented nightclubs, watched Russian films, spoke on Portuguese-language radio, met with small town locals in Maine and with Luso-Americans in New Bedford, and attended soirées in Manhattan. In these pages we see the attractions and contradictions of 1950s America, the land of opportunity for so many immigrants, from a fresh perspective, through the experiences, discoveries, perceptive observations and critical reflections of a life-long enfant terrible.

Natália Correia was born in 1923 on São Miguel, Azores, but moved to Lisbon at age eleven. After briefly attending university, she embarked upon a literary career, writing poetry, fiction, plays, criticism, and journalism. A political activist and defender of women’s rights, the charismatic and combative Correia challenged preconceptions and defied conventions. She composed the lyrics to the regional anthem of the Azores. In the 1960s she spent two years under house arrest for resisting Portugal’s dictatorship. In 1971 she and two friends established Lisbon’s Bar Botequim as a venue for music and intellectual and political conversation. She was first elected to Portugal’s Parliament in 1980. One of the most prominent voices of Portuguese literature and culture in the second half of the twentieth century, she died in Lisbon in 1993.

Mario Pereira is Executive Editor of Tagus Press in the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Katharine F. Baker attended the University of California-Berkeley, University of Maryland, and University of Pittsburgh. She has translated books by Álamo Oliveira, Gabriela Silva, Eduardo Mayone Dias, Vasco Pereira da Costa, Adelaide Freitas, and Joel Neto. She contributes to Gávea-Brown, Filamentos, and The Portuguese Tribune. Emanuel Melo immigrated to Canada at age nine from the Azores. His writing has been published in anthologies of Luso-Canadian writers, in Cleaver Magazine, Gávea-Brown, and Filamentos; other writings are on his website. Onésimo T. Almeida is Professor Emeritus of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University.

Published with the support of the Government of the Azores, In America, I Discovered I Was European is volume 5 of the Bellis Azorica Series, edited by Onésimo T. Almeida (Brown University) and Mario Pereira (UMass Dartmouth), and a co-publication with Gávea-Brown Publications in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University.

To purchase In America, I Discovered I Was European, please visit the University of Massachusetts Press website (link in comments below).

05/03/2025

Our final event of the 2024/25 academic year is the talk by Annarita Gori (University of Lisbon), “Staging the Nation: Political Exhibitions and the Estado Novo’s Cultural Strategy in the 1930s” on Thursday, May 8, at 5:30 pm in Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese American Archives (Library).

This talk explores the political exhibitions organized by the Estado Novo during the 1930s, highlighting how these carefully orchestrated events manipulated history to legitimize the regime’s authority. Connecting local practices to global contexts, it also demonstrates how the Estado Novo leveraged these exhibitions to consolidate internal support, promote international alliances, influence foreign audiences, and strengthen ties with the Portuguese diaspora. Finally, by situating the Estado Novo within the wider cultural strategies of interwar authoritarian regimes, the talk offers new perspectives on the interplay between propaganda, history, and politics during this critical period.

Annarita Gori is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, and currently a Fulbright Scholar at UMass Dartmouth. Her expertise lies in cultural diplomacy, visual propaganda, and intellectual networks. Her latest book is Showing Salazarism: A Cultural History of Early Estado Novo Through Political Exhibitions (Routledge, 2025).

04/24/2025

The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture and Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese American Archives present a book talk with Daniela Melo and Timothy Walker, coeditors of The Captains’ Coup: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Portugal (1974-1976) by Wilfred Burchett, on Tuesday, April 29, at 6 pm, at the FMPAA (Library). Refreshments will be served and copies of the book will be available for sale. Please park in lot 13.

The Captains’ Coup is a legendary journalist’s eyewitness account of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. Burchett went to Lisbon in 1974 to cover the military overthrow of the fascist dictatorship that had ruled the country for nearly five decades. His on-the-ground reporting details the immediate aftermath of the coup and the civilian uprising that followed. On the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution’s end, The Captains’ Coup offers an insightful, poignant narrative never before available in English from a journalist of international repute. The text is based on the author’s original typescripts, discovered recently in the National Library of Australia.

Included are a foreword and introductory essay that explore the political and journalistic significance of Burchett’s work. Illustrated by contemporary photographs and political posters, the volume is complemented by the editors’ annotations, providing essential historical context, and includes also an afterword by historian and filmmaker Tariq Ali.