Date: January 18th, 24th and 31st 2011
Venue: Respectively at the Auditorium of the Rectory of University of Coimbra, Auditorium of the Museum of Science and Biblioteca Joanina
Supported by: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Presentation:
The conference cycle “Heritage of Portuguese Influence” was organised by the doctoral programme with the same name by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Investigation and the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of University of Coimbra..
The doctoral programme aims at settling and developing itself as a platform of plural, comprehensive reflection on the phenomenology and ethics of the studies on cultural specific or diffuse material and immaterial heritage, produced by the Portuguese presence in the world, whether through expansionist and colonial processes of more immediate identification, or through individual or institutionally autonomous small group adventurism.
These are matters which, for several different reasons, have generated polemics which, in benefit of sound and loyal dialogue, cooperation and solidarity between the peoples, should be settled and cleared with resource to the scientific methods of construction of knowledge, which the investigation in heritage (the core of this doctoral programme’s objectives and action) aims at addressing.
The conference cycle will be a public exercise of discussion of such matter from that perspective, making use of a group of specialists and base themes, as well as some opportunities. To name but some examples we can focus on all that is happening: the application of University of Coimbra to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage, the creation of the WHPO Network (World Heritage of Portuguese Origin) and the recent publication, by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, of the work in three volumes called “Heritage of Portuguese Origin in the World: architecture and urbanism”, directed by José Mattoso. In a very rare deed, this work will be made public and discussed at a high level only one month after the publication of its last volumes.