Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Cultura

Coordinator:

Peter Hanenberg
(Human Sciences Faculty/Catholic University of Portugal)

The research line first started under the title Literary history and translations. Representations of the Other in the Portuguese Culture under the direction of Teresa Seruya as a completely new branch of investigation in Portugal and is part of this Centre since 2005.

The emerging field of Translation Studies continues now within the larger context of European Studies, emphasising the importance of translation and Translation Studies for the representation and accomplishment of the European Idea. We hope to provide Translation Studies with a still more European dimension. Moreover we expect to grant European Studies a concrete orientation in the reflection of how Europe is constructed by "translating" and how it is represented by and through translation. Translation in its basic sense of "trans-latio" means the building and the overcoming of borders and frontiers, the transition of its own space (by means of expansion) and the permeability of experiences and representations.

The research group brings together an excellent set of experiences, well developed and tested in a large European context (within EU-projects, international conferences, international partnerships and international publications).

The main aim of the research team is to define and to prove, in what sense translation is one of the most important means in the concept of Europe and in its cultural processes. Therefore the members will develop their research within four projects:

A - Translation studies in Portugal

Researchers: Teresa Seruya, Ana Maria Garcia Bernardo, Maria Lin Moniz, Peter Hanenberg, Alexandra Ambrósio Lopes, Maria dos Anjos Guincho, Alexandre Dias Pinto, Carlota Miranda, Hanna Pieta, Maria Lúcia Diogo Abreu, Nadia Gilardi

There are two main activities within this project:
- Intercultural literature in Portugal 1930-2000: a critical bibliography
The following outcomes are foreseen: Volume I 1930-1950 – end of 2008; Volume II (1950-1974, the year of the April Revolution) – end of 2010; (Volume III 1974-2000, after 2010)
- Censorship and Translation in Portugal during the “Estado Novo” regime (1930-974)
Both activities will be carried out in close collaboration with the University of Lisbon, Centre for English Studies.
A conference on the subject is announced for July 10 and 11 2008 at UCP.
Beyond these two projects other books will be published, as well as individual studies and theses on subjects in Translation Studies.

B - European Languages in contrast

Researchers: Adriana Alves de Paula Martins, Ana Maria Garcia Bernardo, Bernd Sieberg, José Pinto de Lima, Maria Clotilde Almeida, Maria Filomena Dias Capucho, Maria Isabel Salazar Casanova, Ruth Huber, Ana Aragão Morais, Ana Margarida Abrantes, João Mexia dos Santos, Michelle Wells, Rita Faria

The project emphasizes the importance of the linguistic dimension for Translation and European Studies. The diversity of cultures in Europe is ensured by the diversity of languages / linguistic diversity and the common European concept can only be achieved by a better comparative understanding of its elements. Therefore the project unfolds in a wide European cooperation and by means of comparative linguistic studies on subjects like Oral Languages, the Concept of Intercomprehension, Theories of Grammar, Grammaticalisation and Lexicalisation, the History of Lexicography and Language-Learning.
The following activities are foreseen:
- Thematic Network Project on Intercomprehension as a EU-financed project;
- PhD-Course on Linguistics and Language Training 2007-2010 at the Viseu-school, directed by members of the CECC;
-Dictionary-project: Wörterbuch der Jugendsprache Portugiesisch-Deutsch/Deutsch-Portugiesisch. Dicionário da Linguagem dos Jovens Português-Alemão/Alemão-Português, edition co-supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation;
-Co-organization of the 42nd International Conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Sept. 2009);
-Online-journal: Linguanet.com (CFP prepared)
-Working group on European Lexicography
-Working group on Language Learning: Portefólio para a Aprendizagem de Línguas no Ensino Superior (in collaboration with the Macau Inter-University Institute)
-Publication of a series of conferences, about 17 articles (in national and international journals) and 6 books between 2008 and 2010.

C - Narrating Europe: experiences and representations

Researchers: Anabela Mendes, Artur Teodoro de Matos, Gabriela Fragoso, Maria Teresa Dias Furtado, Marília dos Santos Lopes, Peter Hanenberg, Teresa Cadete, Ana Margarida Abrantes, Elisabetta Colla Coelho David, Klemens Detering

How do history, literature, film and arts reflect and represent Europe? What kind of cultural dimension is constructed, experienced and translated by the concept of Europe? What crossovers were productive for this concept? Is there a European way towards Global History?

The following outcomes are foreseen:
- Translation and critical edition of works by Alexander von Humboldt, Hölderlin (Correspondence), Schiller ("History of the Rebellion of the Netherlands against the Spanish Crown") and others.
- Realization of international seminars and conferences:
- in cooperation with the Portuguese German Studies Association, 14th to 16th of Febr. 2008;
- Garcia de Orta and Alexander von Humboldt - Across the East and the West, International Centre, Goa, 24.11.-6.12.2008 (in cooperation with the University of Goa);
- section co-directed by the CECC at the IVG-congress, Warsaw 2010.
- Publication of about 12 articles (in national and international journals) and about 4 books.

D- Culture and Cognition

Researchers: Ana Margarida Abrantes, Maria Clotilde Almeida, Peter Hanenberg

Recent findings about human cognition have reshaped our understanding of culture. While the historical perspective in the studies of culture is concerned with the origins and differentiated development of human cultural products and social organizations, the cognitive view adds to these issues the interest in the biological and cognitive conditions that made it possible for such structures to emerge in the first place. Moreover, the cognitive prism in the study of culture reveals the uniqueness of our cognitive architecture and its distinctive feature, namely that the human mind only completely unfolds in a synergy of minds. This feature of shared cognition is at the core of social and cultural organization. Human beings are cultural by nature and it is this condition that is on focus of a cognitive approach to culture, both in a diachronic perspective of the study of culture in human evolution, and the research of culture as a phenomenon in present times. The CECC project on Culture and Cognition emerges in the context of this interdisciplinary research. It aims at promoting awareness about the cognitive foundation of culture across disciplinary fields of research, which traditionally focus on specific contents of the vast field of cultural studies, and thus at reshaping the concept of culture, so that it encompasses not only its products and manifestations, but also the cognitive conditions that make it possible as a human exclusive, in the first place.

The following activities are foreseen:
- CECC Conference on Cognition and Culture, May 21st-22nd 2009