The three most representative names of Portuguese literature are widely acknowledged to be the Renaissance epic poet Camões, the 19th-century novelist Eça de Queirós and the modernist Pessoa, all of whom can be regarded, in different ways, as transnational writers. The fact that none of them is female may reflect the (perceived?) limited capacity of women to contribute to the shaping of Portuguese culture. Yet in the last forty years the most widely translated and internationally circulated Portuguese text, after Camões’s Lusiads and alongside Pessoa, has been New Portuguese Letters by the Three Marias – and this suggests that the time is ripe to revisit women artists’ experiences of cultural encounters across national borders. The aim of this conference, then, is to foreground transnational women’s contribution to Portuguese culture (and vice versa) and to interrogate the nature of their impact in Portugal and beyond, while fostering an interdisciplinary and transcultural perspective. Numerous Portuguese women artists have lived abroad for extended periods of time, and increasingly so in the last two centuries. The painter Dame Paula Rego (Oxford doctor honoris causa) and the writer Maria Velho da Costa (one of the Three Marias, who resided in Britain and then Cape Verde) are two of the most high-profile cases still alive today. Surprisingly, however, their oeuvre has yet to be considered from a transnational or transcultural angle.
Cultural identities are constructed in and through representation. The conference will examine how the meaning of being a transnational/ diasporic artist has shifted across time, and focus on negotiations of creative influence and multiple identifications through the lens of gender. Broadening the scope of this event to artists working in different media, such as painters and film-makers, will allow us to consider ‘language’ and representation more broadly; issues around translatability and cultural difference; inter-artistic dialogues; the politics of reception, (national) identity and belonging, and the transnational nature of culture industries.
Attendance is free. For further information or to register please email sandra.beaumont@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Organizers: Prof Claudia Pazos Alonso, Dr Maria Luisa Coelho and Prof Hilary Owen
Conference Programme
Thursday: 16 March – Seminar Room A/B. Staircase 4. Wadham College.
| 9.30-10.00 | Opening and Welcome from Professor Cláudia Pazos Alonso, Oxford University, on behalf of the conference organisers, and Professor Phillip Rothwell, King John II Professor of Portuguese, Oxford University. |
| 10.00-11.00 |
Transnational Women Artists. Chair: Patrícia Oliveira Silva Giulia Lamoni (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) “Leonor Antunes’ ‘Research Imagination’” Emília Ferreira (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) “Mily Possoz: the world as self-representation” |
| 11.00-11.30 | Coffee |
| 11.30-12.30 |
Raced/Imperial Transnationalisms. Chair: Anna M. Klobucka Ana Margarida Dias Martins (University of Exeter) “Teresa Margarida da Orta (1711-1793): a minor transnational of the Brown Atlantic” Hilary Owen (Oxford University/University of Manchester) “Between Two Feminisms: Transnational Gender Politics in Portuguese India” |
| 12.30-2.00 | Lunch |
| 2.00-3.00 |
Transnational Mediators of the First Wave. Chair: Hilary Owen Chatarina Edfeldt (Dalarna University), “Portuguese Women Writers of the Early 20th Century as Transnational Literary and Cultural Mediators” Anna M. Klobucka (University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth) “Mapping Queer Transnational Women of Portuguese Modernism” |
| 3.00-3.30 | Coffee |
| 3.30-4.30 |
Transnational Women in Digital Media and Film. Chair: Ana Margarida Dias Martins Mariana Liz (Universidade de Lisboa) “Portuguese women directors on the global stage: the case of Margarida Cardoso” Suzan Bozkurt, (University of Manchester) “Can Cybercriticism offer a global window on Contemporary Women Writers in Portugal?” |
| 4.30-5.00 | Break |
| 5.00-6.00 |
Plenary. Chair: Cláudia Pazos Alonso Maria Irene Ramalho (Universidade de Coimbra and University of Wisconsin-Madison) “Maria Velho da Costa’s Alice” |
| 7.00 | Dinner |
| 8.30–9.30 |
Moser Theatre, Wadham College Chair: Maria Luísa Coelho with Penelope Curtis (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Lisbon). Ana Vasconcelos (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Lisbon) “The role of the Gulbenkian in promoting and supporting artists abroad” Film Screening of “Revolução”, dir. Ana Hatherly, 1975. |
Friday: 17 March - Seminar Room A/B. Staircase 4. Wadham College.
| 10.00-11.00 |
Paula Rego as Transnational Artist. Chair: Claire Williams Ana Gabriela Macedo (Universidade do Minho) “Interweaving is like knitting. Paula Rego’s ‘interior theatre’ and the intricate pattern of her emotional and intellectual networking” Maria Manuel Lisboa (University of Cambridge) “Both Seawater and Blood Taste Salty: Paula Rego’s A Primeira Missa no Brasil” |
| 11.00-11.30 | Coffee |
| 11.30-12.30 |
Nomadic Subjectivities. Chair: Carmen Ramos Villar Rosa Churcher Clarke (PhD candidate) “À Flor do Tempo – ‘Nem uma coisa nem outra’. Nomadic subjectivity in the crónicas of Ilse Losa” Claire Williams (Oxford University) “Reading Companions: Maria Ondina Braga's Biographies of Women Writers” |
| 12.30–2.00 | Lunch |
| 2.00-3.00 |
Transnational Mediators of the First Wave – II. Chair: Catharina Edfeldt Cláudia Pazos Alonso (Oxford University) “Spreading the Word: the ‘Woman Question’ in the Periodicals A Voz Feminina and O Progresso (1868-9)” Estela Vieira (University of Indiana-Bloomington) “A Woman Playwright in Nineteenth-Century Portugal? The Dramas of Guiomar Torresão” |
| 3.00-3.30 | Coffee |
| 3.30-4.00 |
Ana Hatherly as Transnational Writer. Chair: Maria Manuel Lisboa Patrícia Oliveira Silva (Universidade de Coimbra & Queen Mary College - University of London) “Making and Unmaking: Ana Hatherly’s O Mestre in Context” |
| 4.00-5.00 | Break |
| 5.00-6.00 |
Taylorian Institution Viewing of Exhibition, “Transnational Portuguese Women Artists” |
| 7.00 | Dinner |
| 8.30 – 10.00 |
Moser Theatre, Wadham College Screening of "Paula Rego, Secrets and Stories” dir. Nick Willing, 2016. |
Saturday: 18 March - Seminar Room A/B. Staircase 4. Wadham College.
| 9.30-10.30 |
Transnational Women Writers and the Anglophone Interface. Chair: Ana Gabriela Macedo Maria Luísa Coelho (Oxford University/Universidade do Minho) “O Mapa Cor de Rosa by Maria Velho da Costa: migration, dis-location and the production of unstable cartographies” Carmen Ramos Villar (University of Sheffield) “Bridging the Transnational Gap: Katherine Vaz, a Portuguese American Writer” |
| 10.30-11.00 | Coffee |
| 11.00-12.30 |
Transnational Women Artists in the New Millenium. Chair: Maria Luísa Coelho Maria Lusitano (Portuguese Artist/University of Westminster) “Transnational Bodies of Desire” |
| 12.30-2.00 | Lunch |
| 2.30-3.30 |
Book Launch - Dorfmann Room. St. Peter’s College Feminine Singular. Women Growing up through Life-Writing in the Luso-Hispanic World, ed. Maria José Blanco and Claire Williams. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2017. |