Portuguese Courses | Saab Center for Portuguese Studies

For the latest course information please consult the UMass Lowell Academic catalog.

All Portuguese courses in the World Languages and Cultures Department (courses listed alphabetically in the academic catalog).

Portuguese Courses in the Department of World Languages and Cultures

First-Year Portuguese

Second-Year Portuguese

*Students interested in taking Independent Study and Directed Studies courses in advanced Portuguese language, literature and culture, please contact Professor Frank F. Sousa by email at: frank_sousa@uml.edu.

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Gulbenkian/Saab Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies for Spring Semester 2020

Rui Tavares

The Saab Center for Portuguese Studies in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, in partnership with the History Department and the Honors College, is pleased to announce the appointment of noted Portuguese historian Rui Tavares as the Gulbenkian/Saab Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies for Spring Semester 2020.

Prof. Tavares will teach two courses, on Tuesdays and Thursdays: “History of Portugal,” in the History Department, and “The ‘Enlightened’ Censor: The Paradoxes of the Eighteenth Century European Cultural Revolution as Seen from Portugal,” in the Honors College.

Prof. Tavares has published eight books on Portuguese history and politics and on the European Union. He was visiting distinguished lecturer at Brown University in fall 2018. He served as member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014, and is the founder of the political party Livre. He is also a leading public intellectual whose regular column appears in the influential daily newspaper Público." During his residency at UMass Lowell he will give public lectures. More information about lectures is forthcoming.

The Gulbenkian/Saab Visiting Professorship in Portuguese Studies is made possible by generous support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Saab Family.

History of the Portuguese World: History of Portugal

History: America and the World
Tuesday & Thursday: 5-6:15 p.m.

This course offers a general overview of Portugal’s history, from its consolidation as a nationstate in the Middle Ages and exploration and imperial expansion in the early modern period, to the authoritarian regime of Salazar, the transition to democracy, decolonization, and full membership in the European Union.

For more information, please contact Prof. Frank F. Sousa, Director, Saab Center for Portuguese Studies, by email: frank_sousa@uml.edu or phone: 978-934-5199.

The ‘Enlightened’ Censor: The Paradoxes of the 18th Century European Cultural Revolution as Seen from Portugal

A Special Topic Seminar in Honors
Tuesday & Thursday: 2-3:15 p.m.

This course will examine the work of 18th-century Portuguese censors during the regime of the Marquis of Pombal, the renowned Portuguese leader credited with introducing Enlightenment ideals into Portuguese society and culture. As the censors permit or forbid books by Voltaire, Rousseau or Locke, and also sermons, plays and academic treatises, could the censorship of the 18th century, imbued with elements of the Enlightenment, be regarded as an “enlightened” censorship more than an anti- Enlightenment project? The answer to this question will allow us to better understand the difficult birth of modernity and pluralism and the challenges both face today.