Rethinking Portuguese History Through Film

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
• Coordinator: Patricia Sequeira Brás
• Prerequisities: this module will be taught in English. There is no language requirement other than English.
• Assessment: a 2500-word essay (40%) and a 3500-word essay (60%)

This course narrates the dramatic history of Portuguese modern politics through film. Its aim is twofold: to familiarise students with key historical processes in twentieth-century Portuguese society and to analyse how the cinematic medium has been revisiting and/or problematising Portuguese history.

Films to be viewed include No Man’s Land (2012), Tabu (2012), Colossal Youth (2006), among others.

• Anderson, Perry, 'Portugal and the end of Ultra-Colonialism' (I, II, III), in New Left Review, 15, 16, 17, 1962.
• Birmingham, David, A Concise History of Portugal (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
• Birmingham, David, Portugal and Africa (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
• Castro, Paul Melo e, Shades of Grey: 1960s Lisbon in Novel, Film and Photography (London: MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 2011).
• Costa, João Bénard, Stories of Cinema (Lisbon: INCM, 1991).
• Chilcote, Ronald, The Portuguese Revolution: State and Class in the Transition to Democracy, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010).
• Chilcote, Ronald et alia, Transitions from Dictatorship to Democracy. Comparative studies of Spain, Portugal and Greece (New York; London: Crane Russack, 1990).
• Costa, José Filipe, 'When Cinema Forges the Event. The case of Torrebela', in Third Text, 25, 1 (2011).
• Ferreira, Hugo Gil and Michael W. Marshall, Portugal’s Revolution: ten years on (Cambridge University Press, 1986).
• Graham, Lawrence S., 'Is the Portuguese Revolution Dead?', in Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 16, 2 (1979).
• Graham, Lawrence S., and Douglas L. Wheeler, In Search of Modern Portugal: the revolution and its consequences. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982).
• Grilo, João Mário, 'The Subaltern Image. Reflections on Portuguese Audio-Visuals in the Post 25th April Era', in Portugal: a cinematographic portrait (Lisbon. Número, arte e cultura, 2004).
• Mailer, Phil, Portugal: The Impossible Revolution (Oakland: The Merlin Press, 2012).
• Marques, A. H. de Oliveira, History of Portugal. Vol. II: From Empire to Corporate State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).
• Maxwell, Kenneth, The Making of Portuguese Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
• Monteiro, Paulo Filipe, 'The Burden of a Nation', in Portugal: a cinematographic portrait (Lisbon. Número, arte e cultura, 2004).
• Pinto, António Costa (ed.), Contemporary Portugal: politics, society and culture (Boulder: Social Science Monograph, 2005).
• Pinto, António Costa (ed.), The Last Empire: thirty years of Portuguese decolonization (Bristol: Intellect, 2003).
• Rothwell, Phillip, A Canon of Empty Fathers (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2007).
• Royo, Sebastian, 'From Authoritarianism to the European Union: The Europeanization of Portugal', in Mediterranean Quarterly, vol. 15, 3 (2004).
• Sapega, Ellen W., 'Image and Counter-Image: The Place of Salazarist Images of National Identity in Contemporary Portuguese Visual Culture', in Luso-Brazilian Review, 39, 2 (2002).
• Santos, Boaventura Sousa, João Arriscado Nunes, Reinventing Democracy. Grassroots Movements in Portugal (London: Routledge, 2006).
• Sardica, José Miguel, Twentieth Century Portugal: a historical overview (Universidade Católica Editora, 2008).
• Shaw, Lisa, 'Song of Lisbon', in Mira, Alberto, The Cinema of Spain and Portugal (London: Wallflower, 2005).
• Silva, Helena Gonçalves et alia (ed.), Conflict, memory transfers and the reshaping of Europe (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010).
• Torgal, Luís Reis, 'Propaganda, ideology and cinema in the Estado Novo of Salazar: The conversion of the unbelievers', in Contemporary Portuguese History Online, working paper.
• Wheeler, Douglas L. and Walter C. Opello Jr., Historical Dictionary of Portugal (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2010).
• Woodward, Alison E., Transforming gendered well-being in Europe: the impact of social movements (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).