Thursday, May 31

Universidade de Évora (all sessions will be held at the University)

8:30 – 9:00 Registration

 

9:00 – 11:00

 

1A. Imagens e Representações do Portugal Mediterrânico: Dos Relatos Setecentistas aos Guias e Roteiros de Viagens Contemporâneos

Chairs: Antónia Fialho Conde and Maria Ana Bernardo, Universidade de Évora

 

“Itinerários e lugares: o Alentejo como espaço de lazer e de cultura nos guias e roteiros de viagens (1880-1930)”

Ana Cardoso de Matos, Universidade de Évora

Maria Ana Bernardo

O carácter cada vez mais utilitário que os guias turísticos foram apresentado ao longo do século XIX determinou que o seu texto se tornasse gradualmente mais sistemático e completo, aliando-se à descrição dos lugares um conjunto de informações de ordem prática tais como indicações sobre as unidades hoteleiras existentes e a sua qualidade, o valor da moeda, a distância em relação a postos de correio, principais vias de ligação a outras localidades e meios de transporte disponíveis. Normalmente entre os locais indicados como ponto de visita contam-se, por um lado, aqueles que se podem considerar tradicionais, e, por outro lado, os que estão ligados em grande parte ao sagrado, quer os edifícios que testemunham aos valores culturais, sociais e políticos de cada momento histórico. As igrejas, as catedrais e os paços episcopais são normalmente referidos. Entre os edifícios civis destacam-se com frequência os edifícios camarários, símbolo das cidades, os palácios e as casas senhoriais, entre outros. Propondo circuitos nas principais cidades ou excursões entre locais de interesse turístico, os guias incluíram cada vez mais plantas de cidades e mapas, com indicação das principais vias de comunicação, alojamentos ou informação geográfica e cartográfica considerada relevante. Por vezes, forneciam-se apontamentos, mais ou menos profundos, de ordem histórica e económica, e faziam-se referências às características naturais da geologia, da flora e da fauna locais. Para além disso, o desenvolvimento de ciências como a medicina ou a química deram ao termalismo e à prática balnear oitocentista uma nova dimensão, decorrente quer do maior conhecimento da composição química das diferentes águas (termais e marítimas) e das suas propriedades curativas, quer do carácter mundano que se associou a estes espaços e que determinou a construção de grandes hotéis, casinos e outros espaços de lazer. E com o avançar do século XX, as grandes obras de engenharia, como as pontes ou as centrais hidroeléctricas, são mais frequentemente referidos e considerados como obras ou locais com interesse para serem visitados pelos turistas. É a partir desta diversidade e riqueza informativa dos guias e roteiros turísticos, editados em Portugal desde a segunda metade do século XIX até aos anos trinta do século XX, que se pretendem identificar lugares e itinerários que contribuíram para a valorização do Alentejo como espaço de turismo, lazer e cultura.

 

“From the Red Alentejo to the new wave Alentejo

Ana Lavrador, Universidade de Lisboa

Maria Alexandre Lousada, Universidade de Lisboa

This paper pretends to fix the most relevant identity images of the Alentejo, one of the most charismatic regions of Portugal. Through the last 30th years, it has aroused important changes in this region, both in the land property and in the economical activities, reflected in the land use and in the soil occupation. In this period of time, the landscape changing and the marketing have been able to create brand new representational images from the region. Three political and social conditions explain the main territorial transformations of the region that contributes to the modification of the Alentejo’ image: a) The Wheat Campaign, in the 1930th decade, through which the region is transformed in the “country cellar”; b) The Agrarian Reform emerged from the Revolution of the 25 April, 1974, witch implies property occupations, expropriations, new rural enterprises (UCP) and the dominant communist vote, all forming the Red Alentejo image; c) The actuality, emerging in the latest 80th and in particularly after the Portuguese admission in the European Community, in 1986, centred in the fallowing changes: (re)new agricultural proposals (the vineyards, the olive trees, the cattle production, the large irrigation plan from the Alqueva’ dam enterprise); new industrial activities, specially the Sines harbour platform and new transportation systems (the roads and the main roads and the high velocity network project) and, above all, a large offer of recreational activities, both secondary residences and tourism (visits to historical villages, hunting, enotourism, open air activities, others), constituting a promising new wave. The methodology lays on the following procedures: acquire of relevant statistical data and a set of representational supports: publicity artifacts, literary texts and video images.

 

“Évora e o Sul nos Relatos de Viagens do Período Moderno”

Antónia Fialho Conde

A partir de relatos de viagens e descrições de Setecentos, que implicarão a análise comparativa, sempre que possível, com referências similares anteriores, procuraremos, privilegiando as fontes locais e o material bastante heterogéneo que elas nos oferecem, cruzar as informações neles fornecidas com os dados cartográficos coevos, bem como com informações acerca de Évora e do Sul transmitidas por Autores portugueses da época. A riqueza desses discursos, cruzando a ciência e a história, a literatura e a lenda, motiva a sua análise sob diferentes prismas, nomeadamente o histórico, o geográfico, o antropológico e o literário, de que enfatizaremos o primeiro. A análise dos relatos de viagens em perspectiva histórica permite ainda colocar importantes questões sobre os seus autores, tal como a sua origem, a finalidade e perspectiva da viagem, a sua formação académica e cultural, os seus conhecimentos a nível da região (geografia, história, mitologia), entre outros. Privilegiando o discurso de estrangeiros e a sua perspectiva de análise da realidade geográfica citada, com especial ênfase no século XVIII, implicando a descrição de sítios e paisagens, de localidades, de património construído e cultura material de tipologia diversa, somos conduzidos à comparação com a realidade actual e à percepção do permanente e do contingente, sublinhando desta forma a importância da viagem e dos viajantes no discurso histórico.

 

1B. Medieval History I

Chair: Jo Ann McNamara, Hunter College, New York

 

“Adriatic Identity: An Unknown Feeling in Early Medieval Adriatic?”

Francesco Borri, Notre Dame University, Indiana

At the beginning of the ninth century, probably in 804, the people of the ancient Byzantine province of Istria, in northern Adriatic, complained against the new Frankish administration. The sad destiny of the Istrians is known thank to the placitum Rizani, a very well know and important document that put in comparison the Byzantine and the Frankish administrations of Italy. The former elites, called capitanei, compared the old life system (imperial) with the new one, remembering their fall from grace and mentioning how their prestige was at the moment low and their life hard. At the end of their bitter lament they said how for their new condition their relatives (parentes) from Venice and Dalmatia used to laugh about them. The use of the word parentes is surprising also because the same word was used, a couple of lines before, by the same people to describe their ancestor. Was this expression really reflecting a common feeling of Identity that was built in some Adriatic areas before the birth of Venice? Is it possible to trace back the roots of this phenomenon looking at the political and social developments of this area? In this paper I propose to analyses the many similarity between the Northern Adriatic areas emerging from the scarce Early Medieval sources and that are spread in Italian, Frankish and Dalmatian Chronicles, private documentation, Theological and Hagiographical data. The evidence can, in my view, corroborate the odd sentence of the placitum Rizani and shows many aspect of a dark and unknown age, very important for a better understanding of the following, rich developments of the Adriatic area.

 

“The Emirate of Bari: Christian-Muslim Relations in the Ninth-Century Mediterranean”

Travis Bruce, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo

The southern-Italian ninth century represents a unique moment in Mediterranean intercultural relations. Despite the opportunity it presents for studying intercultural exchange, it has been largely ignored by historians. I propose to use the Muslim emirate of Bari to illustrate the practicality of Mediterranean Christian-Muslim relations. Shared and disputed by the Byzantine and Carolingian empires, the Mezzogiorno saw with Islam the addition of a new element into its maneuverings for power. Nominally subject to the influence of both empires, Christian local rulers sought to maintain sovereignty vis-à-vis their co-religionist neighbors and the imperial courts, and the new Islamic presence was quickly integrated into their political machinations. Without regard for religion, the Christian polities made quick use of Muslim mercenaries in their conflicts, until the mercenaries themselves became a major player in regional politics, especially with the establishment of the emirate of Bari. The lure of Mediterranean Muslim markets also led ports to privilege relations with their Muslim counterparts, often to the detriment of their co-religionists. Through Latin and Arabic chronicles and documents, it is clear that the Muslims of Bari integrated the Mezzogiorno, their role determined more by commercial and political factors than by religion, superposing thus regional dynamics on religious interactions.

 

“The Topography of Genoese-Jewish Interaction on Chios, 1450-1500”

Brian Becker, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo

This paper will explore the topography of Genoese-Jewish interaction in and around Scio, the largest city on the Genoese island colony of Chios, between 1450-1500. Genoese notarial registers provide the vast majority of the evidence for these encounters, and will thus serve as the documentary basis of my inquiry. The acts found within these registers preserve transactions effected between the colonizing Genoese and indigenous Jewish populations, the majority of which were concluded within the Judaica, located in the northeast corner of the city. They also contain clauses that record, using descriptive language, property locations in this neighborhood. These clauses oftentimes mention one piece of property in relation to those around it, which provides insight into the physical layout of the Judaica. The analysis of these property clauses in conjunction with acts recording Genoese-Jewish interaction not only tell us a great deal about the processes of this inter action, but also where the instances of interaction occurred in relation to each other. In more general terms, the surviving documentation from Genoese Chios also gives us a rare opportunity to examine the interaction between Jewish and Genoese communities, considering the lack of a significant Jewish population in medieval and Renaissance Genoa.

 

“Cracking the Salamantine Lantern Code from Jerusalem to Boston”

James F. Powers, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts

This paper discusses the emergence and spread of the “Salamantine Lanterns” from their widely varied origins in the Near East and Europe in the twelfth century. The movement of this architectural curiosity is connected both to the Crusades and the Iberian Reconquest, as well as the movement of concepts and ideas across the Mediterranean during a century of creativity. The initiation of the movement focuses on the Cathedral of Zamora and the problems the architects faced on constructing a crossing tower. The connection of their solutions to the construction of other similar towers first in Salamanca, then more widely in Iberia, and even across the Atlantic, is the central theme of the presentation. The essay elaborates on the initial theory advanced by Carl Kenneth Hersey in his “The Salmantine Lanterns,” while adding additional sources to his argument, and associating it with the construction of the Cathedral of Évora. The paper would best fit in a session devoted to art and architecture, or at least to Iberian subjects.

 

1C. Art History I

Chair: Gilbert Fernandez, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville

 

“Giorgio Vasari’s Oratory at Cortona”

Liana Cheney, University of Massachusetts Lowell

In 1554, the Compagnia del Gesù of Cortona commissions Giorgio Vasari to decorate with biblical sacrifices their offertory of their church (Vasari’s Ricordo 224). Vasari assisted by Cristofaro Gherardi depicts twelve sacrifices from the Old Testament (Isaac, Cain, Abel, Enos, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Jacob, Aaron, Nehemiah and Melchisedek) in the walls and three scenes from the New Testament (The Conversion of Saul, The Christ in Limbo and The Transfiguration) in the ceiling. While part of the fresco decoration has suffered severe damage and recent restoration has protected the surviving images, preparatory drawings for this commission at the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi and the British Museum assist in the study of this religious program. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the symbolism of Vasari’s religious program for the lay confraternity of Il Gesù.

 

“Stewards of Nature: An Analysis of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Seasons

Donna Bilak, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, New York

Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Seasons (ca.1565) is a series of oil-on-wood paintings. Generally believed to include six works, there are five extant panels: Harvesters (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Haymakers (Roudnice Lobkowicz collection, CZ), and Gloomy Day, Return of the Herd, and Hunters in the Snow (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Each panel is associated with a specific season, signaled by the kinds of human labours/leisures depicted within the painting s scene. When viewed as a panoramic cycle (missing painting notwithstanding), Bruegel’s Seasons unfolds as a beautiful story about Time s passage, expressed through landscape composition and the human labours/leisures which serve to mark seasonal transitions from panel to panel. Despite their prominent placement in the panels foreground, the people represented in Bruegel’s cycle are not necessarily the primary subject matter. Rather, Bruegel appoints them a supporting position; they are illustrated in their role as the stewards of Nature, depicted by the ways in which they care for the terrestrial world and reap Nature’s bounty. Thus Bruegel portrays Nature as macrocosm and the human element as microcosmus, expressed through the cycle s artistic details. Accordingly, this paper explores how Bruegel s Seasons encapsulates sixteenth-century cosmological notions through analysis of the cycle s artistic structure and composition.

 

“Interrogations of Women, Women’s Sexuality, Eroticism, and the Spiritual in Contemporary Mediterranean Art”

Martine Antle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Though notions of the sacred and the erotic are deeply rooted in both the history and practice of Western art, women have rarely participated directly in its production before the beginning of the nineteenth century. Women, who had up to that point been all but excluded from the art world, were obligated to gain entrance via the study of the nude—a domain generally reserved for men—in order to rethink and re-contextualize the representation of the body; among many women artists, this process most often found identity and affirmation through the desire to differentiate itself from the long history of masculine production of art. Numerous women artists set out on this perilous quest for a new language, not only in the West, but also in diasporas relatively unknown to Western institutions, including the North African and Oriental diasporas. In the following presentation, I question to what degree and through what means women artists from the North African and Oriental diasporas deliberately engage —as Easterners— in the questioning of Western masculine hegemonies? More importantly, I will show to what degree these artists create and re-inscribe new configurations of the religious and of the sacred in contemporary visual art.While reversing the stereotypes associated with women, and working towards the visibility of women’s artistic production, the women artists of the African and Oriental diasporas take control of the production of their own visual representation, as Salah M. Hassan recently demonstrated in Gendered Visions: They are no longer the displaced and subdued objects of a hegemonic (foreign or male) gaze; the have instead become centrally located, active creators who call such a gaze in question. Nonetheless, what distinguishes Western women artists from those of the African and Oriental Diasporas is the reappearance of spirituality and religion, two fields of exploration that have, up to this point, progressively distanced themselves from Western artistic production. These diasporic women artists, and more specifically, those of the Arab-Muslim tradition, as we will see, learn to renew the ties between art, women, sexuality, and religion, and they thereby thrust the originality of their project onto the international art scene. It is thanks to Baya Mehieddine, who first made women visible in the Oriental art scene, as well as Houria Niati, with her deconstruction of Orientalist ideology, that a new generation of women artists set off on the path towards a new artistic production that would acutely interrogate the relations between art, sexuality and the sacred.

 

 

1D. 16th-Century Exploration and Travel

Chair: Daryl Palmer, Regis University, Denver, Colorado

 

“An Assessment of William Toweson’s Three Voyages to Guinea (1555, 1556, 1558)”

Frances Luttikhuizen, Barcelona, Spain

Though Wm. Towerson was not the first English merchant to travel to Guinea, his three voyages are of interest to both social historians and social linguists in that they provide a longer and more detailed narrative from which to ascertain early reactions and interactions between Europeans and native Africans. Making inroads in Guinea meant competing with both the French and the Portuguese. This will be basically a descriptive analysis of the expectations and results of these early voyages.

 

“Imagining Europe”

Daniel Reff, Ohio State University, Columbus

During the sixteenth century Portuguese and other European explorers, soldiers and missionaries encountered a vast world of otherness that was at once marvellous and frightening. In this paper I explore how Europe’s encounter with the orient (China and Japan) forced Europeans to re-think their own identity and the requirements for “civilization.”The analysis focuses specifically on Luis Frois’ “Some Striking Contrasts in the Customs of Europe and Japan (1585).” In this Portuguese mansucript (written by a long-time Jesuit missionary in Japan) the assumptions and categories of European life and experience (covering everything from gender to gardening to shipbuilding) are marshalled to delimit the boundaries of [Mediterranean] European culture.

 

“Spanish and Portuguese Explorers of the South Pacific”

Carol Beresiwsky, Kapiolani Community College, University of Hawaii

Solomon Islands, Marquesas, Marianas, Torres Strait, Santa Cruz, and Australia are familiar place names in the South Pacific; however it is not widely know that these names trace their origins back to the 16th and 17th century era of Spanish and Portuguese exploration and discovery This multimedia presentation will give an overview of Spanish and Portuguese explorers of the South Pacific with attention to Prince Henry the Navigator s Sagres school and how pilots and navigators were prepared. Often Portuguese navigators served as pilots on Spanish ships such as Quirós, born Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in Evora, who first sailed with Álvaro de Mendaña, and others, such as Magellan (Fernáo de Magalhães) switched allegiance. to Spain for reasons of political or financial gain.. A detailed description of the voyages based on narrations in the ships logs will focus on the voyages of Magellan (Magalhães), Mendaña, Quirós (Queiros), and Torres in the South Pacific.

 

“The Case of Castaño de Sosa: A Portuguese Conquistador Negotiates Authority in the American Southwest”

Daryl Palmer

In 1590-91, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa packed up the colony of Villa de Almadén (now Monclova) and marched into present-day New Mexico. It was an ambitious, unauthorized, and contentious undertaking. Of course conquistadors accepted the fact that crucial decisions regarding a given entrada would be debated among the governing peers; but Castaño de Sosa’s expedition stands out as a volatile version of this custom. Because of this fact, a study of the entrada can reveal hitherto unexamined protocols that enabled colonization on the Spanish frontier.

 

1E. The Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey

Chair: Adel Sidarus, Universidade de Évora

 

“The Creation of the Turkish Image in the 16th-Century Mediterranean: Self-Reflection versus Anti-propaganda”

Özlem Kumrular, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey

This papers aims an imagological analysis of the “Turk” in the 16th century Mediterranean through a huge corpus of published material and archival data. (Chronicles, “avisos”, “relazioni”, official letters, fermans –imperial letters of the sultan-, poems, plays, booklets published by the church, “relaciones de sucesos”, folk tales, legends, folk songs, etc.) The roots of the creation of a negative Turkish image will be comparatively analysed by the help of Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Algerian, Greek, Turkish, etc. sources. The fact that the Ottoman empire supported the expansion of this negative image and made use of it as an unsurpasseble conquest tactic in the Meditterranean where as the “victims” of the Turkish menace, majorly the Spanish empire and the Italian states, used this image of the “enemigo común”, (common enemy) as an antipropaganda to unite the Christian states to create a wall of defense against the Turkish “flood”, -as a sixteenth century diplomat defines-, will be discussed. The psychology of the Christian population living on the coasts that were open to the Turkish attact, picturesquely reflected in the 16th century literature and folklore will be our point of departure.

 

“Women’s Everyday Lives in Ottoman Society: The Rule of Seclusion and Strategies of Participation”

Neşe Öztimur, Bursa, Turkey

Ottoman women’s lives have been always interesting and mysterious for the Western writers. But in the most cases, these lives were evaluated within the borders of “harem life”, in other words with the association of sexuality, lust and desire capacity of women. This kind of evaluation is a mirror of patriarchal presuppositions that gives women only sexual and reproductive function within the societal structuring. However with the development of feminist consciousness and history writing this kind of prejudices were eliminated and questionized by emphasis on their neglecting of women’s everyday lives and their active role within the organization of societal relationships. This paper is an attempt to rereading of Ottoman women’s everyday lives by assuming their active social agent positions, this means resistance and subversion capacities. Departing from these estimations, the questions to be tracked down within the borderlines of these paper are as follows: In what way have the gender relations been organized in the Ottoman society within organization of production that excludes private property? How has the position of woman been determined and how and in which direction has this position changed in time? The traces shall be attempted to be trailed as to how the political, economic and cultural transformations that occurred in the last four centuries covering the process in which the Ottoman Empire integrated to the world capitalist system and the resulting network of international relations, in other words the transformation of the relations of production and mode of production, reflected on the lives of women, the ways of establishing gender relations and the division of labor between genders. What were the dominant discourses of power in the Ottoman society? What kind of an impact did these discourses have on the subjective experiences of women in their everyday lives? How, through which strategies and developing what kinds of technologies of the self would women resist against these discourses of power in the course of agency in their everyday lives? Which discourse bases would mark out the boundaries of the relationships of women? And how and what strategies would women adopt in order to extend and stretch these boundaries? While seeking answers to the questions of how the gender perceptions, idealized definitions of femininity and masculinity and gender relations altered and were transformed in time, the paper will also touch upon the transformations of the patriarchal patterns actively involved in the Ottoman society through centuries. In order to analyze the positioning of women in the Ottoman social structure, the paper will firstly touch upon the organization model of the Ottoman society and upon the mental cognitive maps supporting this model. The writen texts and researches that are relevant to Ottoman social sructure and the judicial records belonging to city of Bursa 16th to 19th Centuries will be used as a data sources of the paper. The basic conclusion to draw out of the analyses in this paper is that contrary to the general opinion, women in the Ottoman Empire pursued a dynamic and productive life both in urban and rural areas.

 

“Ottoman Provisionism and Guilds: Tanners in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul”

Onur Yildirim, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Provisionism constituted one of the principal tenets of Ottoman economic system during the early modern period. The populations of the imperial capital Istanbul and major urban centers received top priority in terms of getting their supplies on time and in sufficient quantities. In this process many craft guilds came to depend on the supply of their raw materials through the provisioning policies of the state. However, from the early part of the eighteenth century onwards, Ottoman government authorities began to abandon the traditional comprehensive provisioning policy and concentrate their provisionist concerns mainly on the realm of foodstuffs and the basic needs of the army. The present study examines the impact of this policy shift upon the tanners and other leather-related craft guilds of Istanbul. This task is fulfilled against the backdrop of the wholesale institutional transformation that characterized the fiscal and administrative mechanisms of the Ottoman state during the eighteenth century. A due attention is also paid to the changing role of the merchants in the economic life of the Ottoman Empire, more particularly in the European sections of the Empire where mercantile activities were associated intimately with the rise and spread of nationalist movements. The study is based upon the archival documents obtained from the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul.

 

“Women and Islamic Politics in the Mediterranean Region: The Case of Turkey”

Nilufer Narli, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey

Women in Mediterranean region have become politically active. In Eastern Mediterranean countries, which are Muslim populated, many women have been mobilized by Islamic groups. The paper aims to analyze the trends of political participation of Muslim women in Islamic civil society and political parties by studying Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia as case studies. An increasing number of women from the middle and lower-middle class have been mobilized by Islamic NGOs and political parties since the late 1980s in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. However, women’s participation in institutionalized party politics and civil society and their numbers in the decision-making organs are lower than those of men, and they form a lower proportion of total membership than men. Nonetheless, there are indications of powerful new demands coming from the Islamic women that could undermine the male dominated party politics if they are well articulated and allied with the feminist demands from various circle s. They suggest new moral imperatives and values that the political parties may no longer be able to satisfy unless they change their attitudes towards women.

 

11:00 – 11:15 Coffee Break

 

Thursday 11:15 – 1:15

 

2A. Notícias Setecentistas do Ultramar Português

Chair: Fernanda Olival, Universidade de Évora

 

“Discussão, negociação e gestão da política ultramarina: a América portuguesa no alvorecer do século XVIII”

Maria Fernanda Bicalho, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Essa comunicação pretende discutir a inflexão da política ultramarina portuguesa na passagem do século XVII para o XVIII. Há um consenso na historiografia de que o reinado de D. João V (1706-1750) foi marcado por um processo de centralização monárquica, que teria esvaziado uma série de prerrogativas de órgãos de representação dos interesses das elites coloniais, entre eles, as câmaras. No entanto, uma análise mais acurada da documentação pode demonstrar que também nas conquistas houve uma modificação no perfil das elites locais, que passaram a atuar em instituições facilmente identificadas com o poder central. Cabe, portanto, rediscutir os significados e os mecanismos nos quais se pautaram as mudanças ocorridas na política referente ao ultramar, assim como a renovada capacidade das elites ultramarinas de gestão e negociação de seus interesses. Propõe-se, nesse sentido, a analisar as inflexões, tanto no âmbito dos órgãos decisórios da monarquia, como o Conselho Ul tramarino, quanto nas mutáveis dinâmicas econômicas e sociais da América portuguesa.

 

“Do Atlântico ao Índico: notícias ultramarinas do Diário do 4.º Conde da Ericeira (1729-1740)”

Tiago C. P. dos Reis Miranda, Centro de História da Cultura da Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Na esteira da edição dos quatro primeiros códices das gazetas manuscritas da Biblioteca Pública de Évora, planeia-se agora uma antologia de notícias especificamente relativas ao Ultramar português. Trata-se de tarefa que pressupõe, por um lado, o entendimento da natureza desse conjunto de assentos de história do tempo presente (relembrando a maior relação que, ainda em meados do século XVIII, se reconhecia às idéias de informação e saber ), enquanto, por outro, possibilita compreender um pouco melhor os recursos informativos sobre o Império que uma das casas nobiliárquicas mais importantes de Portugal regularmente conseguia obter. A meio caminho entre a história política e a história da cultura.

 

“Os oráculos da geografia iluminista: D. Luís da Cunha e D’Anville na construção da cartografia sobre o Brasil”

Júnia Ferreira Furtado, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil

O objetivo dessa comunicação é investigar a colaboração estabelecida entre dom Luís da Cunha e Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d´Anville na produção da Carte de l Amérique méridionale, da qual existem 3 variações: uma manuscrita datada de 1742 e duas impressas em 1748. Uma primeira dimensão a ser analisada é a visão de dom Luís da Cunha acerca da geopolítica portuguesa que deveria ser formulada para a América na primeira metade do século XVIII, e como essa visão se refletiu na construção do mapa. Uma outra dimensão é desvendar o processo de produção e transformação do mapa em suas diferentes versões, esmiuçando as fontes utilizadas pelo cartógrafo e inserindo-o dentro de um contexto mais amplo de construção do saber cartográfico sob feições iluministas. Uma terceira perspectiva é a análise das formas de recepção do mapa. Por fim, pretende-se perceber as semelhanças e as diferenças das visões geopolíticas de Alexandre de Gusmão, grande articulador do Tratado de Madrid, e de dom Luís da Cunha, expressa no mapa de D Anville, a partir da comparação entre o Mapa das Cortes e a Carte de l Amérique méridionale.

 

“Poder e conhecimento: a imagem do Brasil colonial em Inglaterra”

Ângela Domingues, Instituto de Investigação Científica e Tropical, Lisbon

Considera-se tradicionalmente que o Brasil colonial só foi revelado à Europa culta com as viagens científicas realizadas em inícios do século XIX. Até esta data, a informação disponível sobre este território colonial consistia fundamentalmente em registos textuais e iconográficos de autores do século XVI e XVII e em relatos de piratas, corsários e marinheiros que, ao irem tocando o litoral e ao descreverem-no, renovavam o conhecimento da costa e modernizavam os dados sobre a presença luso-brasileira naquelas regiões. Contudo o interesse da Europa por território hispano-americano, e particularmente pelo Brasil, era inegável e notório. Com base na análise das Philosophical Transactions, jornal da Royal Society, analisaremos o que a elite britânica conhecia sobre esta colónia portuguesa durante o século XVIII, bem como os mecanismos que utilizava para renovar e actualizar esse conhecimento. Diplomatas, cientistas, académicos e comerciantes, entre outros, tiveram, in egavelmente, uma actuação relevante na construção e na actualização da imagem europeia do Brasil antes do século XIX.

 

2B. Ancient History

Chair: Martine Sauret, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

 

“Athenian Naval Operations: Expeditions in the Ionian Sea (375-373/2 BC)”

Kalomira Mataranga, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece

During 375 to 373/2 BC, the Ionian Islands constituted one of the more important theatres of hostilities between Athens and Sparta. The relations and strategic realignments of the Ionian states with the two Great Powers and rivals, fighting for supremacy and sovereignty of Greece, the involvement of these two more powerful, hegemonic, states in the domestic political tensions of the smaller states, as Corcyra and Zakynthos, and the controversial role played by the general Timotheus, commander of the Athenian fleet in the Ionian Sea, are some of the basic issues discussed in this paper.

 

“L’Afrique du Nord antique à la croisée des peuples de la Méditerranée”

Fatima Ouachour, Université de Nantes, France

L’Histoire antique de l’Afrique du Nord a été marquée à la fois par le passage et l’établissement de nombreux peuples méditerranéens différents. Parmi eux, les égyptiens, les grecs, les phéniciens, les romains, qui sont venus s’ajouter à un substrat libyque. Ces peuples se sont non seulement croisés, affrontés, côtoyés mais ont également donné naissance à un peuplement original. Ainsi, par exemple, pour désigner la rencontre entre les Phéniciens, populations venues d’Orient, et les Libyques, populations d’Afrique du Nord, certains auteurs anciens comme Tite Live et Diodore de Sicile ont utilisé le terme de libyphénicien, défini comme étant un peuple de sang-mêlé, mi-phénicien mi-libyen, mais également de références mêlées. Plus tard, la conquête et la colonisation romaine donneront naissance, pendant plusieurs siècles, à une civilisation romano-africaine mixte et singulière. Ainsi, qu’elle ait été libyque, punique ou romaine, l’Afrique du Nord antique tend à montrer un peuplement ayant à la fois composé et allié la diversité sans nier les rapports de forces et sans exclure les particularis­mes ou les traditions, et qui s’inscrit pleinement dans l’élaboration d’une civilisation méditerranéenne. Aussi, dans quelle mesure ce peuplement, marqué à la fois par la cohabitation de la différence, les échanges culturels et les métissages, place-t-il l’Afrique du Nord antique à la croisée des peuples de la Méditerranée?

 

“Des langues, un pays (Plurilinguisme dans la Basse Antiquité égyptienne)”

Adel Sidarus, Universidade de Évora

Depuis la fondation d’Alexandrie et l’établissement de la dynastie macédonienne des Lagides, aux dernières décennies du IVe siècle avant notre ère, l’Égypte fut bilingue, même trilingue à certains moments, jusqu’à ce que la parfaite hégémonie de l’arabe se soit établie entre le XVe et le XVIe siècle. Nous entendons, bien sûr, par multilinguisme une véritable interaction durable entre langues et cultures, que ces cultures soient matérielles ou spirituelles, et non le simple contact momentané dû à une présence démographique ou à une occupation territoriale passagères, tel que l’illustre la propre histoire de l’Égypte ancienne depuis le milieu du IIe millénaire avant notre ère. Depuis les Ptolémées, en effet, nous assistons à l’emploi simultané de deux ou trois langues, selon les sphères de l’activité humaine : politique, administrative, économique, juridique, sociale, culturelle, religieuse. Parfois, à l’intérieur d’une même sphère, deux langues, sinon trois, se côtoient durant plusieurs siècles, comme c’est le cas de la liturgie copte depuis le Moyen Âge.  Nous parcourrons donc les différentes phases, formes et implications de cette situation linguistique – assez originale, pensons-nous – dont beaucoup de témoins, pour la période qui est prise en considération, ont été mis au jour et révélés ces dernières décennies, grâce surtout à la recherche papyrologique.

 

2C. Music History I

Chair: Alexandra Mascolo-David, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant

 

“The Piano Music of the Portuguese Composer António de Lima Fragoso”

Alexandra Mascolo-David

1918, Portugal lost one of its most promising young musicians, the pianist and composer António de Lima Fragoso, at the age of 21. Fragoso was born in 1897 in the small village of Pocariça, in the North of Portugal. The premature death of António Fragoso erased the hope within the Portuguese musical community of seeing one of their own elevated alongside the major composers of the time. Nevertheless, Fragoso still left behind enough works to attest to his musical talent. Over the period of only four years, he composed one orchestral piece, one trio for violin, cello, and piano, several works for piano and violin, a few choral texts, ten songs for voice and piano, and about thirty pieces for solo piano. Fragoso was a very sensitive young man, who had a tremendous passion for music. In the last years of his life, this passion manifested itself primarily in a quest to learn all that was news throughout Europe in the field of musical composition. He developed a keen interest in the work of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) and Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). The music of these composers therefore influenced Fragoso’s writing, whose style combines a romantic vein with pronounced French Impressionistic traits. His writing, characterized by great poetic sensibility, presented a harmonic language quite daring for the time, laced with sharply chromatic and dense sequences of modulations. The most significant works for piano include: 7 Preludes, the Sonata in E minor, the Petite suite (Little Suite), Três peças do século XVIII (Three Pieces from the 18th Century), the Nocturnes in B-flat minor and D-flat major, the Penseés extatiques (Ecstatic Thoughts), the Dança popular (Popular Dance), and the Canção e dança portuguesas (Portuguese Song and Dance). In most of the piano works Fragoso demonstrates his talent and ability in manipulating a versatile and rich musical vocabulary. For the most part, however, Fragoso’s musical language and handling of structure are not as accomplished as they would be in a more experienced composer. Overall, his work shows a continuous search for a unique and personal musical style. In my paper, I will overview António de Lima Fragoso’s life and present a brief analysis of his piano works.

 

“Villani-Côrtes’s Pianistic Idiom in His Art Songs: The Influence of Brazilian Popular, Jazz, Folk, and Urban Musical Elements”

Rubia Santos, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant

In the last twenty years, the Brazilian composer Edmundo Villani-Côrtes (b. 1930) has been recognized as one of the most influential composers in Brazilian art music. Although, this recognition came later in his lifetime, he once stated that it came during a period when he was finally able to dedicate himself to composing full time. Villani has worked most of his life as a jazz pianist, arranger, and professor of composition. Villani s output contains approximately two hundred compositions, most of which written for brass and large ensembles, such as his choral and orchestral pieces. In addition, he is renowned for his arrangements of popular Brazilian music for television and recording labels, as well as a composer of film music. However, it is in Villani s piano works and art songs that the composer s creative talent encounters its most significant expression. This expression is evident in the various musical features utilized by him, resulting in a unique combination of classical tradition and improvisatory manner. Villani wrote fifty-two art songs. The pianistic idiom in his art songs greatly conveys the various Brazilian musical styles that influenced the composer throughout his life. They include jazz, popular, folk, and urban music. In these pieces, the piano part includes the use of tone painting supported by melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, and formal elements. The combination of these elements strongly portrays the musical ambience and textual meaning in supporting the singing of the vocal line. Some of these elements are the samba rhythm, bossa nova and choro styles, modinha form, and jazz harmonic vocabulary. In my presentation today, I will discuss and demonstrate Villani s unique pianistic idiom found in his art songs.

 

“O(A) Professor(a) de Canto e o ensino: percursos e contextos”

Natália de Lima Ferreira, Conservatório Regional de Ponta Delgada, Azores

O estudo que aqui se apresenta centra-se numa reflexão sobre o/a professor/a de Canto e as suas práticas pedagógicas. O texto procura explicar a realidade educativa do ensino-aprendizagem do Canto à luz dos percursos e contextos vivenciais do professor. A explicação fundamenta-se no tipo de investigação centrada no método qualitativo das Histórias de Vida, onde se analisam as relações e generalizações num contexto de características particulares e singulares. Partindo do princípio que a concepção da acção educativa não se reduz a um único modelo de professor cujo perfil responda a um ideal universalmente aceite, entende-se que cada professor é diferente e evolui de forma singular na vida profissional, adoptando as suas próprias estratégias no ensino. Existem sim facetas de uns e de outros cujas características globais poderão espelhar o reflexo da nossa própria identidade, perfil, forma de agir e posicionamento na vida prática, no quotidiano. Este artigo sublinha, assim, a necessidade de uma investigação sobre os processos de formação e práticas docentes, numa tentativa de descobrir e reflectir sobre a realidade educativa do ensino-aprendizagem do Canto. Este artigo atribui atenção particular ao/à professor/a de Canto, tendo por objecto potencial de estudo a realidade educativa do ensino-aprendizagem do Canto. Verificando-se que o ensino do Canto requer o desenvolvimento de um estudo que envolve o trabalho que precede a educação vocal, e partindo do pressuposto que um dos objectivos da sua aprendizagem visa a preparação para futuro cantor/a, o que por sua vez revela certa complexidade, considera-se importante conhecer e compreender os fundamentos e processos que conduzem o/a professor/a de Canto à sua construção e concretização como docente.

 

2D. Early Modern English Drama I: North African Encounters

Chair: David M. Bergeron, University of Kansas, Lawrence

 

“Contaminating Cleopatra: Animal Hybridity and the Wilds of Egypt in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

Gaywyn Moore, University of Kansas, Lawrence

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra attaches the myth and mystery of the asp that Edward Topsell’s Historie of Serpents and Lucan’s epic Civil War describe to the myth and mystery of Cleopatra herself, providing a textual lens through which to view Cleopatra’s relation to, obsession with, and death by, snake lore. Borrowing imagery from the lore of the asp, Shakespeare’s Cleopatra seeks a painless, pleasurable death and immortality from an immortal creature, and in the process unwittingly she aligns herself with the contrary myths of the asp’s creation; noble creation of god, evil minion of the devil, or the seductive, animal hybrid Medusa, cursed for her beauty and her other-woman status. Beginning with her connection to the asp, Cleopatra merges woman, animal and barbarian through her associated image to Medusa, thus creating a potentially threatening, yet persistently ambiguous, hybrid character. Through her connection to, and association with, the asp, Cleopatra evades both physical containment and conscription by Roman culture. Her Medusa-like hybridity, intimately related to the asp origins, and the hazardous venture of commodifying the native animal assure that Cleopatra need not be drawn out of the wilderness which she consistently inhabits in this play and into which she consistently draws others.

 

“Marlowe’s Demythologized Aeneas”                         

Brian Harries, University of Kansas, Lawrence

Critical treatment of Christopher Marlowe’s Dido Queen of Carthage often portrays the play as an amateurish attempt that slavishly copies Virgil’s Aeneid. Significant deviations from the Virgilian text, however, show a conscientious reinvention of the characters. Marlowe breaks with tradition by showing Aeneas’ roles as mythic founder and individual human being in conflict with each other. The play creates a situation where Aeneas must choose between acting in his own behalf and acting for the good of posterity. The sacrifices involved throw into question Virgil’s ideal of imperial piety for Marlowe’s audience. Due to the cultural connections they would make between Early Modern England and Troy/Rome, this consequently questions the cost involved in England’s own imperial aspirations under Elizabeth.

 

“John Dryden’s Don Sebastian, North Africa, and Paradise Lost

Geraldo U. de Sousa, University of Kansas, Lawrence

King Dom Sebastião (1554-1578), of Portugal, was killed at the Battle of the Three Kings (August 4, 1578) in North Africa. This young Portuguese king’s name has become synonymous with wrong-headed militarism, obsessive religious fervor, apocalyptic fanaticism, and an ill-conceived crusade in Morocco. In the 16th and 17th centuries, various English playwrights composed dramatic adaptations based on Sebastian’s life and legend, including George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar (c. 1588), the anonymous Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley (c. 1596), Philip Massinger, Believe It if You List (c. 1630), and John Dryden, Don Sebastian (c. 1689). My paper focuses on Dryden’s Don Sebastian, a strange reworking of Sebastian’s story. Dryden presents Sebastian as a hybrid figure, somewhere between the ideal monarch and medieval knight and a scandalous sexual pariah, caught in a demonic world, similar to the Hell of Milton’s Paradise Lost. In fact, echoes of Milton’s Paradise Lost abound in the play. In Dryden’s drama, however, Sebastian, having mysteriously survived the Battle of Alcazar-Quivir, becomes the prisoner of the tyrannical Emperor of Morocco. Although Dryden represents Sebastian as a Christian hero/crusader, he also shows the darker side of Sebastian’s dream and misguided military pursuits. Dryden erases—in part—Sebastian’s alleged homosexuality; instead, Sebastian experiences a more threatening form of heterosexuality that shakes him to his core. The envisioned paradise of Sebastian’s fantasy transmutes, in Dryden’s play, into its demonic counterpart. In the hot North African desert, Dryden’s Sebastian confronts the destruction of a dream, as well as his own disillusionment, defeat, subjection to a tyrant, and subjection to forbidden sexual desire.

 

2E. Portuguese History I

Chair: David Higgs, University of Toronto, Canada

 

“The Dark Side of the Mediterranean: Expressions of Fear from the Inquisition to the Present”

Maria Antónia Lima, Universidade de Évora

Inside the stones of its most famous buildings, Évora keeps mysteries and secrets which constitute the most hidden side of its cultural identity. A World Heritage site, this town seems to preserve, in its medieval walls, a precious knowledge of the most universal and ancient human emotion: fear. Trying to transcend many of its past and future fears, some of its historical monuments in Gothic style were erected against the fear of death, the most terrible of all fears, which the famous inscription, in the Bones Chapel of the Church of São Francisco, insistently reminds us, through the most disturbing words: “Nós ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos”. If the first inquisitors worked in central Europe (Germany, northern Italy, eastern France), later the centres of the Inquisition were established in the Mediterranean regions, especially southern France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Consequently, the roots of fear in Évora are common to other towns, where the Inquisition developed a culture of fear, through which we could penetrate into the dark side of the Mediterranean, where people were subjected to the same terrifying methods of persecution and torture. This common geographical and historical context was not ignored by one of the most famous masters of American gothic fiction, Edgar Allan Poe. Through the pages of The Pit and the Pendulum, readers get precise images of the fearful instruments of terror that were able to produce the legend that has made the first grand inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, a symbol of ultimate cruelty, bigotry, intolerance, and religious fanaticism, which unfortunately are still the source of our present fears in a time when religious beliefs can be used again as a motif of war and destruction. As Krishnamurti once suggested, only a fundamental realization of the root of all fear can free our minds.

 

“¿Protegieron Salazar y Franco sus industrias corcheras? Aranceles y tipos de cambio en España y Portugal, 1930-1975”

Amélia Branco Dias, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Lisboa, and Francisco M. Parejo Moruno, Universidad de Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

En la comunicación se analiza la política comercial seguida por las dictaduras de Salazar y Franco en lo que respecta a los intercambios de productos corcheros de las dos naciones ibéricas con el exterior. Este análisis está justificado al menos por dos razones. En primer lugar, por el elevado grado de apertura del negocio corchero hacia el exterior en ambos países, fruto de la estrechez del consumo ibérico de manufacturas corcheras y de la elevada demanda exterior de éstas y de materias primas. Y en segundo lugar, por las peculiaridades que rodean al negocio del corcho en lo que respecta a la política aduanera, en la medida que ésta ha recaído, tradicionalmente, en ambos países, a la exportación y no, como es más común en el conjunto de sectores productivos, a la importación de productos manufacturados. Las dos justificaciones anteriores definen, implícitamente, el propósito, también doble, de este trabajo. Por un lado, constatar la responsabilidad de la política aduanera y cambiaria a lo largo de los períodos dictatoriales (español y portugués) en el tipo de especialización adquirida por las industrias corcheras de uno y otro país. Y por el otro, muy relacionado con lo anterior, determinar la contribución de dichas políticas en el desarrollo de las actividades corcheras en España y Portugal, sobre todo en las décadas centrales del período analizado. Finalmente, ya en un contexto de mayor apertura del comercio internacional, se analiza someramente la política aduanera corchera española y portuguesa en el marco de la EFTA y de la CEE, como mercados importadores de productos corcheros ibéricos. En el segundo caso, los acuerdos preferenciales firmados por España y Portugal con el espacio comunitario, en 1970 y 1972 respectivamente, aportan luz sobre la mayor o menor apuesta de los regímenes franquista y salazarista en el apoyo y protección del negocio del corcho en las dos naciones ibéricas.

 

“The Portuguese Revolution of 1974-75 and Its Impact on the Spanish Transition to Democracy through the Eyes of the Spanish Clandestine Press”

Raquel Varela, ISCTE, Lisbon

The Portuguese revolution of the years 1974-1975 had an impact in neighbouring Spain at the political and institutional levels, on the Trades Unions, the Catholic Church and the Armed Forces. In this paper we intend to study these influences through the analysis of four clandestine newspapers Mundo Obrero, of the Spanish Communist Party, El Socialista (PSOE Socialist Party), Combate (LCR Revolutionary Communist League) and La Batalla (POUM Unified Marxist Workers Party). Two of these political parties, PSOE and PCE, will play an essential role in the talks leading to the Moncloa Pacts, the making and passing of a new Constitutional Act and the consolidation of Spain as a western style democracy. We’ll analyse how the illegalized Spanish left understood and reacted to the events taking place in Portugal between the coup that overthrew the Salazar and Caetano regime on 25 April 1974 and the end of the revolutionary crisis on 25 November 1975. This study will also help us understand the political relations between PSOE and PCE and their Portuguese counterparts, PS and PCP.

 

1:15 – 3:00 Lunch (on your own)

 

Thursday 3:00 – 5:00

 

3A. Urban Taxation and Power Networks: Social Control of Revenue in the Iberian South (13th-15th Century)

Chair: Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar, Universidade de Évora

 

“Representation without Taxation? Portuguese Fourteenth-century ‘Cortes’ and Royal Finances”

António Castro Henriques, York University, UK, and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Lisbon

Constitutional history has long emphasised the fiscal role of representative assemblies, following Lord Acton’s famous dictum that there was ‘no representation without taxation’. Critical views on parliamentary history have changed this perception, by emphasising that the existence of an assembly enhanced the political and fiscal authority of the monarch and that parliaments seldom aspired to intervene in the executive level or in the accountability of the taxes the agreed. However, recent work on fiscal history has stressed how parliaments affected financial decisions and how they saw their influence reinforced by negotiating taxation with the monarch. The role of this paper is to introduce fourteenth-century Portuguese *Cortes *to this debate. The origins of Portuguese representative assemblies had been marked by the debates surrounding taxation and coinage in the 1250s but by the middle of the fourteenth century there were no outstanding constitutional fiscal issues dividing the crown and the local representatives. Yet, *Cortes *kept still summoned and their legislative powers grew. This growth of representation, however, did not depend on taxation, as no single tax (or monetary manoeuvre) arouse out of the assemblies. How to explain this apparent paradox?

 

“A Few Problems around a Fiscal Transition”

Hermenegildo Fernandes, Universidade de Lisboa

In this paper I aim to question the transition between a muslim and a christian society in the Iberian southwest from a fiscal point of view. Given the well known continuity in the titles of several of the main officials, both in peripherical central administration and on the local/municipal level, the degree of endurance of muslim fiscal practices will be discussed. This envolves considering a series of issues like the origins of almoxarifados and the role of these officials in the post- reconquista society, the ways by which taxes were collected in newly conquered towns, the link between reguengos and ancient public lands or the transformation of the hisn/alcaria complex into a model of settlement based on the aldeia.

 

“The King’s Control over Revenue: Modes of Tax Reception in Southern Medieval Portugal”

Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar

The aim of this paper is to reflect upon the levels and methods of imposing and receiving royal taxation in an urban environment between the second half of the 13th century and the 14th century, taking into account the importance of revenue collection to the process of reinforcing royal power during the late Middle Ages. For this purpose we shall consider a number of case studies regarding southern Portuguese cities, particularly Évora and Beja, from which we seek to identify the protagonists of such reception and collection methods, in order to establish the rhythms and phases for the imposition of a form of payment but also for the collection of revenue by the king, methods that were valid during the final centuries of the medieval period in a region already incorporated into the kingdom of Portugal by the second half of the 12th century.

 

“Personal Guaranties and Economic Fees: Building a Systemic Institutional Apparatus of Domination in Fifteenth-Century Urban Castile”

José Antonio Jara Fuente, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, Spain

The aim of this paper is to analyse the building process of a coherent system of domination in the cities and towns of Castile in the fifteenth century. In this sense, I will use the city of Cuenca as a perfect case-study. This analysis will frame two of the most relevant processes in the construction of the urban system that is the participation, on the one hand, in the service of the urban public offices and, on the other hand, in the private management of the public tax and financial urban subsystem. Given the extent of this analytical approach, I will centre in one of the phases integrating both processes: the grant of sureties (personal ones in the case of the service of public offices and of economic nature in the case of the private management of the tax and financial subsystem). These grants constitute substantial elements of participation in the construction and organization of the urban system, and their inter-crossed analysis will open this area of the urban system to an in-depth analysis of the strategies of social positioning displayed by the diverse components and echelons of its dominant class.

 

3B. Romance Literary and Cultural Studies

Chair: Susan L. Rosenstreich, Dowling College, Oakdale, New York

 

“Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: Construction of a Heroine, Martyr, and Revolutionary”

Alicia Vitti, Wake Forest University, North Carolina

A noteworthy example of the upsurge in popularity of historical novels is “Il resto di niente” (The Rest of Nothing) Loffredo Editore 1986, by Enzo Striano which provides a portrait of late 18th century Naples under the Bourbons, seen through the eyes of the protagonist Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel (1752-1799). This court poetess, intellectual and aristocrat of Portuguese origin became one of the moving forces in the reform movement of her time and later an ardent Jacobin, editor and author of the Republican newspaper, “Il Monitore” that charted the vicissitudes of the short-lived Neopolitan Republic. Fonseca, who was put to death during the repression following the reinstatm