Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Centro Inter Universitário da História da Ciência e da Tecnologia (CIUHCT)
 

CIUHCT aims at promoting research in the History of Science and Technology according to international standards of scholarship and at contributing to the development and consolidation of this discipline in Portugal. The unit aims at articulating discussion at the conceptual and methodological levels with research on specific topics especially focussed on, but not restricted to, Portuguese history. In any case this focus does not preclude the integration of Portuguese research in international groups and initiatives. On the very contrary, we consider our main mission to present our local case studies in a format appealing to an international audience. Furthermore, the unit aims at contributing to the consolidation of a strong scientific community by actively participating in the education of students (graduate and post-graduate level) as well as by enrolling in outreach activities (popularization, exhibits).

Vidro e Cerâmica para as Artes (VICARTE)
 

General objectives:

• Application of glass science in art, conservation and archaeometry

• R&D transfer to the Glass Portuguese Industry (Marinha Grande)

Research lines:
1. Luminescent glasses, paints, glazes or enamels

• New luminescent glasses with rare-earth oxides: Ce, Sm, Dy, Eu, Tb and Tm

• Uranium glasses in museum collections: radiological protection

• Artwork using luminescent glasses exhibited in several countries

• Luminescent paints, glazes, or enamels for restoration of objects (UV light)

• Luminescent glazes for tiles (collaboration with industry)

• Luminescent films coated over glass (future work)

2. Coloured glass

• Ruby glass with gold nano-particles is being produced and studied

• Gamma radiation used to reduce and nucleate gold (ruby glass)

• Sol-gel route used to produce coloured glasses or glass foams

3. Coated glass for art or conservation

• Films by sol-gel (future work)

• Thin-films by spray pirolysis (future work)

4. Glass History, conservation and provenance studies

• Systematic provenance study of Portuguese glasses

• XVIII century shreds from “Real Fábrica de Vidros Coina” were characterized

• Stained glass windows of the Monastery of Batalha were studied

• Glass corrosion investigated using model glasses or glazes

• 3D printing methods for glass conservation

5. Glass art

• Glass artists develop studio glass works using new glass formulations

• Ceramists use new ceramic glazes

• 3D printing methods for glass art (future work)

• New Master Course at start-up: Glass Art and Science

• Glass art work from pressed recycled glass (future work)

Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS)

Research Groups:

• British Culture and History

• Literature, Media and Discourse Analysis

• Anglo-Portuguese Studies

• Intersections in American Literature, Culture and Thought

• Shakespeare and the English Canon: a research and translation project

• Relational Forms: Intertextual and Inter-Arts Dynamics in the Cultures of Ireland and Britain

• Mapping Dreams: British and North-American Utopianism

Centro de Estudos Históricos (CEH)
 

Founded in 1980, the CEH (Centre of Historical Studies of the New University of Lisbon) is dedicated to scientific research in History on a multidisciplinary perspective, with its own projects or in collaboration with other institutions. Its research is divulged throughout the scientific community in congresses and conferences in which its members participate, and also shown in publications that are the expression of its scientific activities. Although those activities cover a wide chronological span and different fields of investigation, the CEH has been dedicated in the last few years to the transcription and publication of sources for the Portuguese History, especially the records of the Royal Chancellery (Chancelarias) and Parliaments (Cortes), Medieval and Modern. This work, of undeniable importance as a platform for historiographical investigation, is even helping to reconstitute sets of related documentation spreaded in municipal or regional archives all over the country.

Research projects:

• Transcription and publication of the Chancellery records of King John I (Chancelarias de D. João I, XIV-XV centuries)

• Historical Atlas of Portugal and Portuguese Overseas (Atlas Histórico de Portugal e Ultramar Português)

• Urban and Rural Landscapes (Paisagens Rurais e Urbanas)

Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e de Estética Musical (CESEM)

CESEM was created to promote research in the areas of sociology of music and musical aesthetics, in conjunction with other disciplines in the area of the musical sciences and with social and human sciences in general. The Centre has the following objectives:

• The study of cultural heritage in the area of music in Portugal: institutions, communications systems, musicians, works, performance practice, musical iconography, including the identification, preservation and publishing of critical editions of manuscripts (scores and other documents), phonographic documents and other related media;

• The study of the socio-communicational models by means of which music manifests itself with recourse to communications theory and systems theory):

• The study of music through an aesthetic-philosophical perspective and by means of the analysis of sound material;

• Cognitive and psycho-acoustical studies, particularly of musical performance and perception;

• Research in the area of musical dramaturgy and the theory and history of different musical-theatrical genres;

• The study, from an inter-disciplinary perspective, of the relations between music and literature, music and other arts, music and scientific knowledge, music and new technology;

• The development, in cooperation with researchers in the area of information technology, of software for musical composition and analysis, as well as semantic-based knowledge systems.

Research groups:

• Historical Musicology

• Philosophy and Psychology of Music

• Contemporary Music

Centro de História da Cultura (CHC)

The history of ideas, putting together the perspectives of History, Philosophy and Literary Studies, is the basis of CHC's main project. Its research groups question the meanings of conceptions, doctrines or representations, considering their historicity. The research unit studies political as well as religious, scientific, economic, social, aesthetic and philosophical thought and practice, emphasizing the modern, contemporary Portuguese space and its connection with the Iberian, Brazilian and Latin-American space and the study of the forms and means of expressing and transmitting ideas.

Research Groups:

• Studies on Antiquity

• Books and Reading

• Hispanic Culture and Thought

• Free Seminar for the History of Ideas

• Political and International Studies

• Comprehension / Explanation / Language

Centro de História de Além-Mar (CHAM)

CHAM is an inter-university research unit of FCSH/UNL and Universidade dos Açores. It develops research related to the History of Discoveries and Portuguese Expansion, as well as the Portuguese presence around the world, with a special focus for the period between the origins of the overseas expansion and the independence of Brasil (1822), with a perspective that is, as far as possible, interdisciplinary and incorporating comparative history, paying particular attention to the history of the regions with which Portugal maintained contacts.

Research Projects:

• The Nobility and the State of India in the 16th century.

• BBB - Bombay before the British. The Portuguese Legacy at the Bombay Peninsula’s Territory.

• EVE - E-Cyclopaedia of Portuguese Expansion, 15th-18th centuries

• Sources for the History of the Portuguese Estado da Índia in the 17th-18th centuries. The "Colecção Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da Índia"

• In the Name of the Honour: The Commissioners for the Holy Office and for the Military Orders in Portugal, 1570-177

• Portuguese Jesuits in East Asia in the 16th-17th centuries.

• Lower Nobility and “Nobreza da Terra” in the Formation of the Empire: the Atlantic Archipelagos. (PTDC/HAH/66107/2006)

• Portugal and South Morocco: Contacts and Clashes, 15th-18th centuries.

• PIAS - Study, Monitorization and cultural heritage valuation of the archaeological sites Angra A, Angra B, Angra E, Angra F and Angra D (Terceira).

• Portuguese Interactions with Persia during the Iberian Union (1580-1640). The “Comentários” by D. García de Silva y Figueroa

Instituto de Estudos de Literatura Tradicional (IELT)

It began in the last years of the seventies germinating the idea of creating an institute based on the study of topics that were diminished by the academy; the first stage of our work ended in the eighties with the creation of an informal but enthusiastic and enterprising Institute; this led to the current academic format which was set up by 2003.

Research Groups:

• Cantos, contos... e que mais - Lullabies. Folktales and legends. Proverbs. String theatre. Other texts, other voices... Collection and analysis of edited and unpublished material.

• Tradition and Modernity - The presence of oral literature in 19th and 20th century authors. This program aims at articulating the knowledge of portuguese literature, culture and art with popular tradition.

• Falas da Terra – Ecology and Tradition - The representation of nature and environment in portuguese oral literature. Interdisciplinary comments by researchers and specialists of other areas: biology, environment, animal ethics, sociology, geography, anthropology, landscaping and bioclimatics.

Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM)

The Institute of Medieval Studies is a research unit hosted by FCSH/UNL and funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. It was founded in 2002, and it has as its main goal interdisciplinary research in the scientific field of Medieval Studies. Gathering in its team several investigators, both junior and senior, with different scientific backgrounds, the IEM aims to be updated and to engage in research activities in connection with other projects whose goals are to do researching on subjects and problems in medieval studies, as well as to develop scientific and academic exchanges with other national and international, public or private universities and cultural institutions involved in thie same field. IEM aims to achieve these goals by promoting lectures, cultural initiatives and giving online access to data resulting from the work carried out by the research groups, with particular emphasis on Hispanic, Mediterranean, and Atlantic contexts in which the Portuguese medieval society was founded and structured.

Research groups:

• History of Medieval Lisbon

• Historiography of Medieval Portugal

• Medieval Images

• Medieval Portuguese Royal Enquires

• Nobility, Urban Elites, and Military Orders

• Medieval poetry and Prose

Instituto de Etnomusicologia Popular (INET)

INET was founded in 1995 with the goal of carrying out multidisciplinary research on music from the perspective of Ethnomusicology. Throughout its 12-year trajectory, the Institute expanded its research domains and activities, carrying out joint projects with scholars and institutions in Portugal and abroad. Its mission:

• To carry out multidisciplinary research and training on music and dance;

• To stimulate musical creation resulting from research on music technologies;

• To develop research in areas recently integrated in the university curriculum in Portugal: popular music studies, performance studies, dance, composition, and audiovisual archiving.

Research Groups:

• Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies

• Western Art Music from a Cultural Studies Perspective

• Ethnocoreology and Cultural Studies on Dance

• Creation, Theory and Music Technologies

• Performance Studies

Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem (IFL)

The main purpose of IFL is to develop research programs in the current fields of philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, philosophy of communication, aesthetics, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and areas of philosophy of action and moral philosophy which are the main research fields of the Institute. There is not in the IFL a unique and strict philosophical (not to mention, ideological) orientation such as analytical versus continental philosophy and one can speak in a plurality of orientations of its members.

Research Projects:

• Classics on Political Representation

• Concept and Example: Research on the Exemplary Character of the Work of Art Context and Communication

• Emotion, Cognition and Communication

• Extensional Semantics Assessed

• Film & Philosophy: Mapping an Encounter

• Form(s) of Life. A study from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass

• Global Justice and International Terrorism

• Intentions and Conventions

• Paradoxes, Deductive, Inductive and decision-theoretic

• Philosophical Archipelago – National Program of Scientifical Reequipment

• Rationality and Communication - Learning to Talk About Ideas

• Scepticism, Modernity and Politics

• The impact of Rawls’ Theory of justice on the conceptualization of European Union

Instituto de História da Arte (IHA)
 

IHA is a Research Unit at the FCSH/UNL, with a research plan which includes areas from History of Ancient, Medieval and Contemporary Art, supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnololgia. The evaluation process has created the conditions for the IHA to rebuild its organic structure. t main objectives of the IHA are (1) to develop and thoroughly study all areas of History of Art, Aesthetics, Theory and Methodology of History of Art, Museology and Heritage; (2) to carry out and support research projects pertaining to these areas; (3) to promote the creation of teams of specialized researchers within the context of post-graduate and post-doctorate degrees and their research guidelines; (4) to promote the dissemination of the results of the research through publications, the web site, general and monographic training courses, seminars, conferences and other scientific assemblies; (5) to increase scientific exchange between other institutions and between national and international researchers within their specific areas.

Research lines:

• Contemporary Art Studies;

• Architecture and Visual Arts;

• Museum Studies: Art Museums and Collections.

Instituto de História Contemporânea (IHC)

IHC is devoted to study, education and dissemination in the field of Contemporary History in general and of Portuguese Contemporary History in particular. Its mission is:

• To develop and promote study and research of Contemporary History in general and of Portuguese History, at both national and international levels, maintaining a constant and programmed activity, adequating and adjusting the principles and priorities of its scientific program to the training of researchers and the dissemination of the outcomes of their work;

• To contribute to the promotion of a culture based on history, indispensable for a sustained and generalized development of the knowledge society, through the accomplishment of actions and projects of scientific nature and an active dissemination of its outcomes making use of various communication platforms, from conventional publication to new information technologies;

• To intensify the degree and means of internationalization of studies and research on contemporary history, stimulating interchanges, developing partnerships and networks and promoting interdisciplinarity at a national and international level.

Research Projects:

• Marconi in Lisbon

• History and Patrimony of the Portugal Telecom Group

• Organization of the Historical Documental Patrimony of the Fundação Portugal Telecom

• Portuguese Communities and Emigration: History and Memory

• Portuguese Tobis History

• History and Patrimony of National Federation of Child Care Institutions (FNIPI)

• History of the Engineers Association

• Portugal and Europe: from cooperation to integration. 60 years of History, 20 years of Joining. A History of Europe and the Building of Europe. Portugal’s Place.