“New Year’s Program: Arabic Legacies in Portuguese Culture – Medieval Realities, Contemporary Echoes“

Program objectives:
To approach, analyse and disseminate a significant proportion of Portuguese culture constituted by the legacy of names, formats and contents originating from the multiple al-Andalus societies and their realities in terms of social, cultural and religious coexistence. To produce translations between a more erudite language and a more popular register, including, in the diachrony of history, protagonists and contributions either of a more literary nature (literature, poetry, mysticism, science…) or more archaeological and architectural in content (Mudéjar, neo-Arab…) or of a more anthropological profile (gastronomy, customs and traditions…). This furthermore identifies forms of survival and mutation of cultural heritages between the medieval and the contemporary.

Program:
The multiple Andalusian societies;
Pre-Islamic Visigothic society;
The Andalusi society – particularities and interculturalities;
Specificities of the Garb;
Human geography: – Human groups (origins, cultures and religions …);
Idiomatic particularities (phonetics, vocabulary, toponymy…);
The geographies (the cities and their regions; their specific characteristics, their peoples and their memories); Coimbra, Idanha, Santarém, Lisbon; Évora, Alcácer, Beja, Mértola; Faro, Tavira, Silves, Aljezur; The Sea (interrelationship; the voyage, the fear, and the mysticism;
Memories in the kitchen and in the apothecary;
Contemporary echoes, between evocations and new social realities.

Bibliography:

  • Coelho, A. Borges, Para a História da Civilização and das Ideias no Gharb al-Andalus, Lisbon, Instituto Camões, 1999.
  • Machado, José P., Vocabulário Português de Origem Árabe, Lisbon, Ed. Notícias, 1991.
  • Alves, Adalberto, O meu coração é árabe, Lisbon, Assírio & Alvim, 1991.
  • Soravia, Bruna and Sidarus, Adel (eds.), Literatura and Cultura no Gharb al-Andalus, Lisbon, Huguin, 2005.
  • Rei, António, O Louvor da Hispânia na Cultura Letrada Peninsular Medieval, Doctoral Degree Thesis, Lisbon, NOVA FCSH, 2007.

Professor António José da Silva Botas Rei
Contracted Researcher at the Institute of Medieval Studies (IEM) / NOVA FCSH, since 1/2/2019; Researcher at IEM / NOVA FCSH: Collaborator since 2002 and Integrated since 2007; PhD in Cultural History and Medieval Mentalities (NOVA FCSH, 2007); Trainer – (CCPFC/RFO – 22092/07); Specialist in Arabic Language (Univ. Tunis I – Tunisia, 2000); JNICT / FCT Fellow (1996 – 2019); Visiting scholar: at the Departamento de Estudios Árabes and Islámicos/Fac. Filologia (Univ. Complutense de Madrid) (2008-2010); at the Escuela de Estudios Árabes (EEA-CSIC), Granada (2015-2017); Research Stays in Portugal: at CECH/Project DIAITA (Univ. Coimbra) (2015-2019); at CAMértola (2011-2013).

Leading teaching activities: on the Master’s Degree “Islamic Portugal and the Mediterranean”, CAM/UALG (2008-2009); History of al-Andalus, at NOVA FCSH (2011-2012); History of Medieval Culture, at FCHS – UALG (2002-05); Arabic Language: on the MA “Arab and Islamic Cultures and the Mediterranean”, UALG (2003-04); at UEVORA/Fundação Luís de Molina (2000-06); at CELAS – the Silves Centre of Luso-Arab Studies, (2001-2004).

Further information about Tuition Fees, Deadlines and Means of Registration and Eligible Discounts is available here.