TRAVEL AND UTOPIA – Comparatistas

Description

This project has been carrying out research on the variation and problematization of travel writing and utopian paradigm in contemporary times.

It aims to study the contemporary travel writing as experience of the (global) world and literary practice, supported by new dynamics of interpretation implying detours, networks and connections, in order to bring into the foreground its creative and critical projections: concerning new routes to understanding and also the problematization of the Known Universe, related to man, the world and (travel) writing itself.

It also aims to analyze the modes of destabilizing utopian narratives and the different ways of thinking about Humankind and the World; and investigate how contemporary thought idealizes utopia – or, conversely, dystopia, by exploring aesthetic, cultural and ideological problems raised by utopian discourse, as well as its thematic, psychological and literary-historical underpinnings.

Objectives

A critical understanding of Travel Writing opening up to the hermeneutics of the Other and allowing the discussion of concepts such as “encounter”, “confrontation”, “culture” and also of “literature” itself.

To examine and discuss state-of-the-art problems in Utopian Studies in order to address new research on contemporary utopias, taking into interdisciplinary account the approach of aesthetic, cultural, social and ideological problems raised by the recent utopian discourse.

Team

Ana Isabel Moniz
Maria de Lourdes Câncio Martins
Célia Nunes Carvalho
Celina Martins
Leonor Coelho
Manuel Gusmão
Maria Helena Silva
Paula Alves dos Santos
Rita Monticelli
Vita Fortunati

Activities

Conference “Travel and Utopia III – Projects and Reflections: Theoretical and Contemporary Critical Approaches”. School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, December 11, 2017.
International Conference “Recepção da Utopia na Literatura e Crítica Contemporânea”, School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, November 17, 2017.
Seminar in the scope of the program of the Summer School promoted by APEF (Association Portugaise d’Etudes Françaises), on the subject “La Théorie littéraire aujourd’hui. Méthodes et enjeux”, held in the University of Algarve. July 16-22, 2017.
Two seminars on the topic “J.M. G. Le Clézio, La Quarantaine: Pós-Modernismo, Viagem e Utopia”, in the scope of the Free Course “Imagens da Europa na Literatura do Séc. XX”, held at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon. May 18-25, 2017.
Seminar “Utopia: Projects and Reflections Between Lisboa and Bologna”, joint organization of the Centre for Comparative Studies (University of Lisbon) and the Centre for Research and Utopian Studies (University of Bologna), held at the University of Bologna. January 20, 2017.

Publications

Utopia – Bibliografia Crítica Anotada (2000-2005), Edições Cosmos. November, 2017.

Viagem e Utopia – Os Lugares da Invenção em Helena Marques, by Ana Isabel Moniz, preface of Lourdes Câncio Martins, DRAC – Madeira. 2017.