In 2019, the 40th session of UNESCO’s General Conference decided to proclaim 5 May of each year as “World Portuguese Language Day”. The choice of the day is linked to the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), officially established in 2009, o celebrate the Portuguese language and Lusophone cultures.

Check the schedule for May 5, 2021:

World Portuguese Language Day Seminar, Centro Cultural Vila Flor, Guimarães. Organization: Guimarães City Council, University of Minho and Instituto Camões. From 9am (GMT + 1, Portugal)

Moisés de Lemos Martins was invited to the panel Language as a living heritage (coordination: Vítor Ramalho – UCCLA), at 3pm.

• O papel das organizações da Sociedade Civil, Nazim Ahmad – Fundação Aga Khan
• O Museu da Língua de S. Paulo – Brasil – Secretário de Estado da Economia Criativa do Estado de São Paulo Diretora do Museu da Língua de São Paulo
• O Museu Virtual da Lusofonia da Universidade do Minho – Moisés Martins (Universidade do Minho)

Debate Cycle “Promotion and Dissemination of the Portuguese Language: Global Strategies and National Policies”. Organization Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries. Formal sitting at 10 am followed by the Panel (GMT + 1, Portugal).

Sheila Khan was invited to the panel: Portuguese, language of culture, science and innovation.

Opening formal sitting: Francisco Ribeiro Telles, Secretário Executivo da CPLP, Eurico Monteiro, Presidência cabo-verdiana em exercício da CPLP, Delivery of the Fernão Mendes Pinto Prize (intervention by AULP and the winner), Delivery of the UCCLA Prize (intervention by the UCCLA Secretary-General and the winner), and Music moment, with Angolan singer Paulo Flores.

• Panel «Português, língua de cultura, ciência e inovação» Coordination: João Ima-Panzo, Diretor de Ação Cultural e Língua Portuguesa
• António Sampaio da Nóvoa, Embaixador de Portugal junto da UNESCO
• Amélia Dalomba, escritora angolana
• Marco Lucchesi, Presidente da Academia Brasileira de Letras
• José Luís Hopffer Almada, jurista, poeta e ensaísta cabo-verdiano
• Sheila Khan, Profª Universitária/investigadora moçambicana

The Portuguese language in Astronomy – International Portuguese language day. Organization: PLOAD, Portuguese Language Office of Astronomy for Development/Grupo Lusófono de Astronomia para o Desenvolvimento, established by the International Astronomical Union and its Development Astronomy Office. (GMT + 1, Portugal). Coordination: Alan Brito, Gustavo Rojas e Sara Anjos. Live streaming via Facebook on the PLOAD page:  https://www.facebook.com/PLOAD.IAU

Vítor de Sousa is the guest speaker : “Identidades transnacionais e transculturais. Pós-colonialidade, lusofonias e interculturalidade. O caso do Museu Virtual da Lusofonia. O português como língua de ciência”, in the panel, at 2pm.

• Hélio Rocha, presidente da Sociedade Astronómica Brasileira e Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
• Eliana Inge Pritsch, professora da UNISINOS, doutorada em Literatura Brasileira, Literatura Portuguesa e Literaturas Luso-Africanas, pela UFRGS;
• Paulino Lima Fortes, Universidade de Cabo Verde
• Teresa Manjate, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Moçambique
• Vítor Sousa – investigador CECS, Projeto Cultures Past&Present e Museu Virtual da Lusofonia.

The II International Conference on Culture and Society – What literacy (s) for Economic and Social Justice? will be held on May 27 and 28, 2021, through the Zoom platform.

Researchers on the Cultures Past & Present Martins Mapera, FCSH / Universidade Zambeze and Moisés de Lemos Martins, CECS / Universidade do Minho, are the keynote speakers of the first day.

The Conference is a joint realization of CHAM – Humanities Center / NOVA FCSH-UAc; CIJES – Center for Legal, Economic and Social Research/Zambezi University, Mozambique; Center for Multidisciplinary Studies (CEM) Eduardo Augusto Kambwa of the Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Luanda (ISCED-Luanda); Lev’Arte Literary and Artistic Movement, ISCTAC, Alberto Chipande Higher Institute of Sciences and Technologies, Mozambique, Communication and Society Research Centre (CECS/UM) and Cultures Past &Present Project.

On the 12th of March, Interdisciplinary Seminar Interculturalities and historical awareness: current challenges for citizenship, brought together several researchers to share experiences around studies on historical awareness, social representations, narrative, identity, cultural memory, practices and experiences in the education system, thinking about the current intercultural, transnational and global dimensions.

Review the Seminar here.

See the full program here. Free event, with mandatory registration until March 10th by the Form. The session will also be broadcast on the CECS Facebook page.

Organization: “Memories, cultures and identities: how the past weights on the present-day intercultural relations in Mozambique and Portugal?”, Communication and Society Research Centre (CECS, University of Minho, Portugal), Lab2PT – Landscape, Heritage and Territory Laboratory, Permanent Seminar on Communication and Diversity, and Doctoral Program in Cultural Studies.

Interdisciplinary Seminar Interculturalities and historical awareness: current challenges for citizenship

March 12, 2021 ZOOM 14:00 – 18:00

PROGRAM

Opening – Moisés de Lemos Martins – CECS

Cultural memory and historical awareness: a transdisciplinary domain? – Rosa Cabecinhas – CECS

Historiographic representations, transnational historical awareness and symbolic networks. Current definition problems and critical markers – Francisco Azevedo Mendes – LAB2PT

Historical awareness, narrative and identity – reflections and dialogues – Marília Gago – Institute of Education of the University of Minho and CITCEM – Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto

15:45 – 16:00 BREAK

Teaching History and the construction of national identity in the period after independence in Mozambique – Cassimo Jamal – Licungo University, Quelimane

The framing of the History of Africa in the Angolan education system. Practices and experiences – Jacob Lussento Cupata – Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Cuanza Sul (ISCED / CS), University Katyavala Bwila (UKB), Angola

Cultural memory, identities and education: reflections from a reception study with secondary school students – Isabel Macedo – CECS

“Fake news” in the classroom: current historical method – Alberto Sá – CECS

Moderators: Sheila Khan – CECS and Alice Balbé – CECS

Free event, with mandatory registration until March 10th by the Form.

Organization:

“Memories, cultures and identities: how the past weights on the present-day intercultural relations in Mozambique and Portugal?”, Communication and Society Research Centre (CECS, University of Minho, Portugal)

Lab2PT – Landscape, Heritage and Territory Laboratory

Permanent Seminar on Communication and Diversity

Doctoral Program in Cultural Studies

The holding of the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Interculturalities and historical awareness: current challenges for citizenship was postponed due to the interruption of face-to-face activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This edition will be held in online format.

The next CECS’ Permanent Seminar in Post-Colonial Studies will take place on January 20 (3:00 pm), via the Zoom platform and will feature Dan Hicks (Oxford University), author of the book The brutish museums: the Benin bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution (Pluto, 2020). Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. This session of the Permanent Seminar on Post-Colonial Studies is also supported by the project Memories, cultures and identities: how the past weights on the present-day intercultural relations in Mozambique and Portugal?”  the platform Virtual Museum of Lusophony.

The author argues that the return of materials to the countries from which they were created and stolen would be the beginning of a process of cultural restitution. It would allow nations that were colonies to celebrate and question their own cultural heritage. But it would also force the acceptance of its own colonial past.

A museum is not an island, so it cannot be closed on itself. As it is integrated into society, it must know how to talk about what is happening today if it wants to remain relevant, dealing with the past no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

It was not by chance that the largest international museum organization, the ICOM-International Council of Museums, debated the issue in an assembly held in September 2019, in Japan. In question, was the redefinition of the museum concept itself, without reaching conclusions, such was the controversy of the matter, which is why the deliberation was postponed.

The fact is that, in most museums, there is a discourse that confirms that the objects on display belong to Europeans who seem to be consensual, as they refer to the period in which they were colonizers, although this does not entirely correspond to the truth. That is why it is the order of the day to return artifacts existing in museums to their countries of origin. In this regard, Dan Hicks wrote, in 2020, the book “The brutish museums: the Benin bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution”, where he argues that the return of materials to the countries where they were created and from where they were stolen, allowed these nations to celebrate and question their own cultural heritage. But it would also force them to accept their own colonial past.

This seminar seeks to establish a dialogue with the past, not only in a textual and theoretical sense but also by calling and summoning real voices that help us to dialogue with colonial experiences and their reflection in the postcolonial time of our global societies. In this sense, the Permanent Seminar of Postcolonial Studies is born under the sign of a civic and ethical memory duty, based on an intercultural dynamic and results from a partnership between the CECS, the Master of Sociology of the University of Minho and the EXCHANGE Project.