MUST BE TAKEN WITH ML4111 PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE FOR BEGINNERS

This course will introduce students to the history, politics, literature and culture of the Portuguese-speaking world, including Portugal, Brazil, Lusophone Africa and Lusophone Asia. It will assume no prior knowledge of Portuguese, or of the Lusophone world. Key concepts from relevant disciplines will be introduced as necessary. The course is structured in such a way that students will learn about key historical and political periods through lectures, and these periods will be explored in more detail through seminars on related cultural ‘texts’ (such as prose literature, poetry, film, and song). The course is designed so that students will develop their understanding of the relationship between social and political events and the cultures of specific regions.

The first semester focuses on the history of the Lusophone world from early colonisation to the beginning of the twentieth century. It will cover the period of the European expansions into Africa, Asia and the Americas, considering the impact of colonisation, slavery, economic and political change on the regions colonised by the Portuguese. Throughout the semester, the emphasis will be on the impact of Portuguese colonisation and the shift away from monarchy to republics in Portugal and Brazil.

The second semester will focus specifically on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, enabling students to understand better different regions that make up the modern Lusophone world. The module will cover issues around decolonisation, dictatorships and resistance movements, and contemporary national and regional identities.

As a whole, the course will show the cultural and linguistic variety and breadth of the Lusophone world, and will develop students’ understanding of the relationships between history, politics, culture and society. 

On completion of the module a student should be able to:

●Demonstrate understanding of the geographical and linguistic diversity of the modern Lusophone World;

●Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key periods in history that shaped the modern Lusophone World, and of relevant cultural and social issues;

●Deploy information and knowledge to write discursively on historical topics;

●Show familiarity with issues of literary and cultural history relevant to the Lusophone World;

●Show awareness of relevant critical concepts and use appropriate methods to analyse texts written in English and Portuguese, formulating opinions in relation to such texts.

1 hour per week split between lectures and seminars, plus 8 workshops over both semesters.

Lectures and seminars will highlight important background and contextual material, and will be used to explain the main frameworks of analysis and open discussion in relation to the topics studied. Workshops will develop and practise critical and analytical skills in relation to the analysis of texts. 

●Lectures will develop students’ understanding of historical periods and their capacity to absorb information, including through note-taking.

●Seminars will enable students to deepen their knowledge and understanding through active participation in discussion and debate based on guided preparation.

●Workshops will develop students’ abilities to deploy information and knowledge to construct focused and well-informed arguments and hone critical skills.

●Preparation for the classes will facilitate students in the development of research and independent learning skills.

●Group work in seminars and workshops will enable students to develop interdependent learning skills, and to develop good practice in offering and responding to feedback.

●The written assignment will develop students’ ability to present formal academic work, to develop referencing skills and to select appropriate information to construct a well-informed argument.

●The exam will verify that students can demonstrate relevant factual knowledge, and will develop students’ critical and analytical skills and ability to construct critical arguments and synthesise secondary sources. 

Formative - Essay plan - 0% - Week 10 Autumn semester

Formative/Summative - Essay - 30% - Week 12 Autumn semester

Summative - Exam - 2 hours - 70% - Spring exams period

Autumn Semester

1. Introduction.

2. The Age of the Discoveries and Portugal’s Imperial Expansion

3. The Discovery of Brazil

4. The History of Slavery

5. Brazil: Empire to Republic

6. Portugal: Empire to Republic

Spring Semester.

1. Portuguese Colonisation of Africa

2. The Post-Colonial History of Lusophone Africa

2. Dictatorship and Resistance in Portugal

4. Dictatorship and Resistance in Brazil

5. Migration and Society in the Contemporary Lusophone World

Essential weekly reading and viewing items will be made available through Learning Central.

James M. Anderson, The History of Portugal (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000)

Fernando Arenas, Lusophone Africa: Beyond Independence (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011)

Colonial Brazil, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)

Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400-1800, ed. Francisco Bethencourt and Diogo Ramada Curto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

David Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

C. R. Boxer, From Lisbon to Goa, 1500-1750: Studies in Portuguese Maritime Expansion (London : Variorum Reprints, 1984)

E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 2nd edn (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980)

Patrick Chabal, et al, A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa (London: Hurst, 2002)

Robert Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972)

Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil, trans. Arthur Brakel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Sure road?: Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, ed. Eric Morier-Genoud (Leiden: Brill, 2012)

Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (London: Hurst, 1981)

Malyn Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400-1668 (London: Routledge, 2005)

D. L. Raby, Fascism and Resistance in Portugal: Communists, Liberals and Military Dissidents in the Opposition to Salazar, 1941-74 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988)

Arthur G. Rubinoff, ‘Goa’s Attainment of Statehood’, Asian Survey, 32.5 (1992), 471-87

Joseph Velinkar, India and the West, the First Encounters: A Historical Study of the Early Indo-Portuguese Cultural Encounters in Goa (Mumbai : Heras Institute of Indian History and Culture, 1998)

Quincey Wright, ‘The Goa Incident’, The American Journal of International Law, 56.3 (1962), 617-32