Garrett`s Travels and Its Descendants

COLLOQUIUM
Garrett’s Travels and Its Descendants
A Transdisciplinary Colloquium on Travels in My Homeland
on the Bicentennial of Almeida Garrett’s Birth (1799-1999)
22 & 23 October 1999
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Library Reading Area
Sponsored with the generous support of:
the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture
the Luso-American Development Foundation
the Camões Institute
the Gulbenkian Foundation
TAP Air Portugal
Coordinator: Victor J. Mendes
Garrett’s Travels & Its Descendants
Travels in My Homeland (1846), Almeida Garrett’s masterpiece, has, over the past century and a
half, become part of the Portuguese literary canon. It is possible to identify a consensus of
criticism in relation to the place of this work in the canon of modern Portuguese literature.
Twentieth-century criticism has considered this hybrid work an inaugural milestone of literary
and even linguistic modernity in Portugal. The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture is
organizing an international conference on Travels in My Homeland in celebration of the
bicentennial of the author’s birth.
The enormous critical fortune of Travels in My Homeland, the masterpiece of Portuguese
Romanticism, has relevance beyond its literary period. Its relationship to the Portuguese epic
poet Camões has been often documented as well as its influence on Eça de Queirós and other
major Portuguese writers of the twentieth century some of whom will be joining us in
Dartmouth. Much less explored has been Garrett’s relationship to other European literatures
including the English, French, German and Spanish. Travels also lends itself to studies from the
perspectives of contemporary critical theory including genre, narratology, and reader-response
criticism; furthermore, it also suggest insights on aesthetics of reception avant la lettre. The
conference will not be limited to literary exegesis, but will venture into other genres thereby
highlighting the multifaceted character of Garrett’s work, given that his masterpiece is linked to
problems associated with political science, history, linguistics, cultural theory, gender studies
and visual culture. This is the basis for the transdisciplinary spirit proposed for this meeting.
Conference participants are asked to analyze Travels as a “machine to think with,” as defined by
I.A. Richards, instead of primarily focusing on Garrett’s personality. The papers presented and
discussed will be published in a book with the tentative title Garrett’s Travels and Its
Descendants, in what is hoped to be a refreshing volume of new critical readings, which will
inspire a revision of what is already available on Garrett’s masterpiece.
These are, therefore, suggestions that we hope will encourage you to accept this invitation to join
us on October 22 and 23, 1999. In addition to what promises to be an exciting weekend, we also
offer you picturesque New England at the prime of its foliage season.
Friday, October 22, 1999
Opening Ceremony (Library Reading Area)
Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack
Provost Thomas J. Curry
Nobel Laureate José Saramago
President of the National Commission of Garrett’s Bicentennial, Carlos Reis
Director of the Center for Portuguese Studies, Frank F. Sousa
Conference Coordinator, Victor J. Mendes
Helder Macedo, King’s College, London
“Mirrors of Change: Viagens na Minha Terra and Esaú e Jacó” (in English)
The Travels as Politics (in English)
Moderator: Onésimo Almeida, Brown University
Rui Ramos, Instituto de Ciências Sociais-Universidade de Lisboa
“Literature as Bad Consciousness.”
Teresa Pinto Coelho, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
“Imaginary Homelands; Viagens na Minha Terra and Robinson Crusoe.”
Luís Espinha de Silveira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
TBA
Doctorate Honoris Causa awarded to José Saramago
Main Auditorium, Campus Center
O Livro, a Génese e a Ideia (in Portuguese)
Moderator: Carlos Veloso, New York University
Américo Lindeza Diogo & Sérgio Sousa, Universidade do Minho
TBA
Pedro Scachtt Pereira, Brown University
“Uma ideia de Garrett: o ‘douto livro’ das Viagens.”
Joanna Courteau, Iowa State University
“As Viagens na Minha Terra e a Génese do Acto Literário.”
Justificações, Embaraços e Outras Dificuldades (in Portuguese)
Moderator: Helder Macedo, King’s College, London
Fernando Matos Oliveira, Universidade de Coimbra
“Viagens na Minha Terra: a migração da crítica”
Mônica Figueiredo, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
“O embaraçar da meada e a procura de um eu. De Garrett e Carlos, um percurso.”
João Camilo, University of California Santa Barbara
“A carta final de Carlos e Joanina – justificações e outros lamentos.”
Saturday, October 23, 1999
Homeland and Other Institutions (In English)
Moderator: George Monteiro, Brown University
António M. Feijó, Universidade de Lisboa
“National Monuments: Almeida Garrett’s Travels in My Homeland.”
Ana Soares, Universidade do Algarve
“Outw[o]rds/inw[o]rds – mapping individual exiles in Almeida Garrett and David Wojnarowicz.”
Miguel Tamen, Universidade de Lisboa
“Homeless.”
Homeland and Women (in English)
Moderator: António Ladeira, Yale University
Ana Paula Ferreira, University of California Irvine
“Woman’ and the Time of Nation in Garrett’s Travels, Take Two.”
Memory Holloway, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
“Scanning the Horizon: Sight and the Rhetoric of Photography in Travels in My Homeland.”
Antecedentes e Descendentes das Viagens (in Portuguese)
Moderator: António Cirurgião, University of Connecticut Storrs
Marcus Vinicius de Freitas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brown University
“Machado de Assis Leitor de Garrett, ou Viagens na Minha Terra e a Tradição Luciânica.”
Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez, University of California Santa Barbara
“O homem que a sociedade tem contrafeito: o bom selvagen nas Viagens de Garrett.”
Silva Carvalho, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
“A história da menina dos rouxinóis, ou uma história muito mal contada: incongruências e inverosimilhanças na
confissão de um caso difícil.”
Frank F. Sousa, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
“Almeida Garrett e Eça de Queirós: semelhanças nas diferenças, diferenças nas semelhanças.”
Garrett e Saramago (in Portuguese)
Moderator: Francisco Fagundes, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Carlos Reis, Universidade de Coimbra
“Garrett e Saramago: os sentidos da viagem.”
José Ornelas, University of Massachusetts Amherst
“Viagens na Minha Terra e Jangada de Pedra: Encontros e Desencontros.”
Maria Alzira Seixo, Universidade de Lisboa
TBA
José Saramago, Nobel de Literatura 1998
“Garrett e eu.”
Reception in Group VI, Art Gallery
Open Secrets: Drawings and Etchings by Paula Rego
Curated by Memory Holloway.