Initiative Offers Four-part Series Portuguese Explorers Starting March 12
03/11/2015
Contacts: Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu or Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu
LOWELL, Mass. – The Luso-American Foundation, one of Portugal’s leading cultural organizations, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell are partnering on two new initiatives designed to enhance education and research about Portuguese language and culture at the university.
The new initiatives – including a four-part event series that kicks off Thursday, March 12 – are bringing respected educators and writers to UMass Lowell. The Luso-American Foundation Writer-in-Residence Program launched this fall and the Luso-American Foundation/College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies starts this semester.
The foundation-supported programs are being offered in conjunction with UMass Lowell’s Saab-Pedroso Center for Portuguese Culture and Research and the new Portuguese program in the Department of World Languages and Cultures. Both of the initiatives are also receiving support from friends of the university Elisia Saab and Luis Pedroso for whom the center, founded in 2013, is named.
The new Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies program will bring a scholar to UMass Lowell for a semester during this academic year and the next two. The visiting faculty member will teach and conduct research, as well as supporting a new minor and major in Portuguese studies.
The program launches this semester with historian Ana Valdez, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University and researcher at the Centre for History at the University of Lisbon in Portugal. Valdez – author of “Historical Interpretations of the ‘Fifth Empire:’ The Dynamics of Periodization from Daniel to António Vieira, SJ” – is teaching a course in the UMass Lowell History Department, “The First Globalization: The Portuguese and the Age of Discovery” and will collaborate in various Saab-Pedroso Center initiatives.
The Age of Discovery is also the theme of a four-part series that kicks off on Thursday, March 12 and continues on March 26, April 9 and April 16. The sessions – which will meet from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Dugan Hall, Room 211, South Campus, 883 Broadway St., Lowell – will be led by Valdez. The series will examine the first encounters between Europeans, Africans, Asians and Americans from West Africa to India and China. By the early 17th century, European merchants, missionaries and conquerors had established colonies and trading posts across the globe. All sessions are free and open to the public and those interested in attending should contact Natalia Melo at Natalia_Melo@uml.edu or 978-934-5591 at the Saab-Pedroso Center.
The Luso-American Foundation Writer-in-Residence program launched earlier in the academic year with Filipa Melo, author of the critically acclaimed novel “Este é o meu corpo (This is My Body),” which has been translated into seven languages. Melo is also a journalist, culture and literary critic, and book reviewer whose work has garnered prizes, including the prestigious Prémio Nacional de Cultura Sampaio Bruno. While at UMass Lowell, Melo gave a master class for the English Department and collaborated with the Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for the Public Humanities.
“UMass Lowell is grateful to the Luso-American Foundation for its generous support and looks forward to a long-term partnership in the promotion of Portuguese studies and culture in the Commonwealth and across the United States,” said Prof. Frank Sousa, director of the university’s Saab-Pedroso Center for Portuguese Culture and Research and coordinator of the Portuguese program.
Members of the public interested in more information on the programs can visit www.uml.edu/international-programs/Portuguese or contact Sousa at Frank_Sousa@uml.edu or 978-934-5199.
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