What is modernism? What was modernism? What will modernism be? Why modernisms?
The first and second questions have been asked many times in the past fifty years.
The third question, asked here probably for the first time, implies the history that brings the concept, or the concepts, into an ever-changing context.
Finally, the fourth question interpellates the other three, while legitimating the plural in the colloquium’s title.
No conclusive answer has been given so far to the two first questions. Predictably, it never will. The concept of “modernism” appears to be constantly shifting, whether regarding time, space, subject matter or style. There are today as many definitions of modernism, whether explicit or implicit, as fields of knowledge or scholars writing about what they consider “it” to be. The most satisfying answers are those that are aware of their own limitation and deficiency, those presenting themselves as mere provisional descriptions, inviting expansion, elaboration and refinement. Hence the third question. Far from encouraging futurology, the third question is a reminder that scholarship, too, is located in history, and thus subjected to constant change. Discourse on modernism, or modernisms, changes each time it is put in action, and will be necessarily different fifty years from now.
The fourth question echoes an ethical concern typical of a global age of multicultural awareness. What seems to have originally emerged in the first half of the twentieth century as a fairly well-contained, fairly definable Western (if not heavily Anglo-American) literary/artistic phenomenon has been recently amply and variously reconceptualized as far more spacious and diverse, and subjected accordingly to various kinds of revisions. The colloquium’s plural “modernisms” is witness to this approach.
The colloquium marks the conclusion of a collective research project, entitled Memory, Violence and Identity: New Comparative Perspectives on Modernisms, and conducted at the Center for Social Studies (CES) by researchers of the Nucleus for Comparative Cultural Studies (NECC). Its main objective, however, is not to present concrete results (even though this will be the case as well) but rather to create a forum for reflection and exchange of ideas on a much contested subject, and to discuss once again the many implications and ramifications of a very problematical concept.
The colloquium gathers together a number of national and international scholars, well known for their work in the field.

Program

Friday, June 3

9.00 — Registration

9.30 — Opening session

10.00 — Keynote address
Chair: Maria Irene Ramalho (FLUC/CES)
Susan Friedman (U Wisconsin-Madison), “One Hand Clapping: Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and the Spatio/Temporal Boundaries of Modernism”

Discussion

11.15 — Coffee-break

11.35 — Session I: “Spaces and Borders”
Chair: António Sousa Ribeiro (FLUC/CES)
Helena Buescu (FLUL), “Modernity, Borders, and Crystallization”
Gualter Cunha (FLUP), “A Tour of Some Gardens of Modernism: From Coole Park to Eccles Street”

13.00 — Lunch

15.00 — Session II:“Returns, Reflections, Re-Inscriptions”
Chair: Maria Irene Ramalho (FLUC/CES)
Ana Luísa Saraiva (Es. Secundária de Tondela), “Inverting the Middle Passage: Richard Wright’s Return to Africa”
Catarina Martins (FLUC), “Textual Dis-solutions in the Modernist House of Mirrors”
Inês Pinto Basto (Ph. D. candidate, FLUC/FCT), “The Fairest Mirror of All: Alberto Caeiro, Leopold Bloom and Jay Gatsby”
Paula Mesquita (UBI, Ph. D. candidate, FLUC/FCT), “Playing the Part in the War Theater: Gender as a Battlefield in Cather and Faulkner”

Discussion

16.40 — Coffee-break

17h — Session III: “Looking Before and After”
Chair: António Sousa Ribeiro (FLUC/CES)
Rosa Martelo (FLUP), “Previsions and Retrospectives”
Isabel Gil (UCP – Lisboa), “Stemming the Tide: Carl Schmitt and Ernst Jünger’s Reactionary Modernism”

Discussion

18.20 — Coffee-break

18.30 — Keynote address
Chair: António Sousa Ribeiro (FLUC/CES)
Vivian Liska (U of Antwerp), “Making it Mean and Making it Matter: Modernism for the 21st Century”

Discussion

20.30 - Dinner (optional)

Saturday, June 4

9.30 — Session IV: “Modernisms Otherwise”
Chair: Isabel Caldeira (FLUC/CES)
Maria José Canelo (FLUC/CES), "The Geopolitical Dimension of Modernism - Mexican Immigrants and Alternative Modernities"
Osvaldo Manuel Silvestre (FLUC), “Consequences of the Return of the Prodigal Son: Modernism and the Avant-garde in Portugal in the Light of Performance”
Teresa Cid (FLUL), “Lively Modernism(s): The Comic Strip as/and Modern Art"

Discussion

11.30 — Coffee-break

12.00 — Keynote address
Chair: Isabel Caldeira (FLUC/CES)
Houston Baker (Duke University) “The American South: Modernism and Modernity in One United States Perspective”
Discussion

Conclusions

Organization:
Núcleo de Estudos Culturais Comparados,
Centro de Estudos Sociais
Universidade de Coimbra

Location:
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, Anf. III, 4th floor

Registrations for the Colloquium will be accepted until Friday, June 3. Registrations for the optional dinner on Friday, June 3 will be accepted until May 27.