Memory, Silences and Heterodoxies

Recommended Prerequisites

Knowledge and degree required for posgraduation studies. Degree in Humanities, Social Sciences, Arts or similar. Fluency in writeen and spoken Portuguese. Reading skills in another language, preferably English or French.

Teaching Methods

Classes will include the exposition of the theoretical framework and historical contextualization, besides document analysis and debate. Students will do supervised research on a chosen issue, which they will present in class for discussion, and on which they will be required to produce a final paper. Each class will be articulated around a specific theme, sustained both by empirical data and theoretical reflection. All students are expected to engage in debate.

Learning Outcomes

This seminar opens up the history of ideas to a multidisciplinary approach. Its aims promote new research projects, through the acquisition and development of knowledge in the approached subjects. The main aims of the seminar are: 1) observation and analysis of the plurisignification of the concept of memory in its connection to history; 2) development of an awareness of the practical as well as of the symbolic dimension of silence and silencing as processes of manipulating the past; 3) understanding heterodox thinking as a tool for the production of renewed cultural balances as well as for promoting both social and political change.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1) Analysis of the plurisignification of the concept of memory and comprehensive approach to the links between individual memory, collective memory and the writing of History; 2) Analysis of the overlapping between forms of obtaining, recovering and enunciating memory with the various cultural, political or methodological conditioning factors, which establish both inclusion and exclusion of data, voices and beliefs from the past; 3) Understanding the symbolic dimension of both the silences and the unsaid as processes which result from a choice sustained by the manipulation of memory; 4) Reflection on the “archaeology of silence”, its founding value and its historicity; 5) Objective analysis of defined acts of silencing placed within the awareness of conflicts, tensions and combats over memory; 6) Historical approach of issues and forms of heterodox thinking as tools to question dominant discourses as well as tools for the enunciation of a new political and cultural order.

Head Lecturer(s)

Rui Manuel Bebiano do Nascimento

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Synthesis work: 10.0%
Active and regular attendance: 20.0%
Research work: 70.0%

Bibliography

ARÓSTEGUI, J., e SABORIDO, J. (2004), La Historia Vivida. Sobre la historia del presente. Madrid. Alianza Editorial.

BOYM, S. (2001). The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.

COLMEIRO, J. (2005). Memoria histórica e identidad cultural. De la postguerra a la post modernidad. Barcelona: Anthropos.

IZUZQUIZA, I. (2003). Filosofia del presente. Una Teoría de nuestro tiempo. Madrid. Alianza Editorial.

JUDT, T. (1998). The Burden of Responsability. Blum, Camus, Aron and the French Twentieth Century. Chicago:

Chicago University Press.

KOSELLECK, R. (1993). Futuro pasado. Para una semântica de los tiempos históricos. Barcelona: Paidós.

MISZTAL, B. A. (2003). Theories of Social Remembering. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

MUDROVCIC, M. I. (2005). Historia, narración y memoria. Los debates actuales de la filosofia de la historia.

Madrid: Akal Ediciones.

ORLANDI, E. P. (2007). As formas do silêncio. Campinas: Unicamp.