Portuguese Culture in Modern Times
History of Portuguese Culture in Modern Times by José Eduardo Franco
PREFACE
“The historian is a manipulator of time. He locks time in a field, or a castle made of words (...). A manipulator of time in the sense that he intervenes even when he does not want to intervene, conditioned to some form of conception of present and future, he is still (...) a man of his trade, a man of his trade, a real craftsman. Obviously, the historian lives and has lived in your time. He carries its traces in his body and mind.
António Borges Coelho
The research and teaching of Portuguese Culture as History and as an object of interdisciplinary study have grown in the last decades in the academic field of Human and Social Sciences in Portugal.
In fact, a course in the History of Portuguese Culture with various forms of approaching in conformity with the pedagogical-didactic architecture of the course for the teacher, having been considered in different curriculum of higher education in Portugal, can and should make up the fundamental material for the basis of knowledge with transversal usage to various areas of knowledge.
Nonetheless, in Manuel Antunes`s line the of thought, culture is that which makes a human fully human. Higher education in the History of Culture is situated in time and space, it is confined to the borders of national culture as cultural communities become essential to approaching the so-called identity cultures. It is understood here the cultural phenomenon as “world of meaning“, which was presumed by Pedro Calafate in the context of critical thematization of Portuguese culture and his theorem around the concept of “cultural community of origin“, taking in the background thinking of Max Weber as interpreted by Francisco Gama Caeiro.
The teachings and research of a history of culture is thus determined and bound as a particular field of a cultural phenomenon that is characterized by analysis of its own contours. It cannot separate itself from the branches that connect it to the problematic field of a culture that is universally understood. This effort of the undercurrent of an analysis that would become too isolationist permits opening horizons of comprehension and meaning with a view of fostering an increasingly comprehensive spiral approach. We will then have, soon enough, a vision of human culture understood in an increasingly complex dimension raised by the questioning of its whole, where the individual is connected to the universal.
In fact, a course in the History of Portuguese Culture with various forms of approaching in conformity with the pedagogical-didactic architecture of the course for the teacher, having been considered in different curriculum of higher education in Portugal, can and should make up the fundamental material for the basis of knowledge with transversal usage to various areas of knowledge.
Nonetheless, in Manuel Antunes`s line the of thought, culture is that which makes a human fully human. Higher education in the History of Culture is situated in time and space, it is confined to the borders of national culture as cultural communities become essential to approaching the so-called identity cultures. It is understood here the cultural phenomenon as “world of meaning“, which was presumed by Pedro Calafate in the context of critical thematization of Portuguese culture and his theorem around the concept of “cultural community of origin“, taking in the background thinking of Max Weber as interpreted by Francisco Gama Caeiro.
The teachings and research of a history of culture is thus determined and bound as a particular field of a cultural phenomenon that is characterized by analysis of its own contours. It cannot separate itself from the branches that connect it to the problematic field of a culture that is universally understood. This effort of the undercurrent of an analysis that would become too isolationist permits opening horizons of comprehension and meaning with a view of fostering an increasingly comprehensive spiral approach. We will then have, soon enough, a vision of human culture understood in an increasingly complex dimension raised by the questioning of its whole, where the individual is connected to the universal.
Original Source: https://goo.gl/Wzmybw (pp 5-6)
Translated by: Badriah.Revised by: Mariana C.
In order to dedicate this blog to Popular Culture in Portugal we are out to understand what constitutes as culture and what is modern/popular culture. In my opinion, we cannot separate popular culture from the history of Portugal. Therefore, it is important to know some turning points in the History of Portugal, one recent example is the 25 of April Revolution that opened many doors to self-expression and freedom, especially in Arts. Popular culture is invented, revived or imported and it is interesting to understand why and how something is consider a pop-culture.
- Badriah Alzahrani.
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