Founded in 2013, with generous gift from the Saab Family Fund, the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies promotes the multidisciplinary study of the language, literature and culture of the vast and varied Portuguese speaking world comprised of over 250 million people in eight countries on four continents and its diaspora.

Rui Tavares

The UMass Lowell Saab Center for Portuguese Studies and History Department present a virtual lecture.

• When: April 29, 2020 at 11 a.m.
• Where: Virtual
• Who: Rui Tavares, Gulbenkian / Saab Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies in Spring 2020

Register Online for Utopia’s Generation: Thomas More, Erasmus, Damião de Góis and the End of a World

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Today, millions of young Europeans enroll in an academic exchange program called the Erasmus Program, named after the humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Back in the 1500s, the Erasmus “program” consisted of finding out where Erasmus himself was staying in Europe, and dropping by to visit or even stay at his home in Basel, Leuven or Antwerp. Thomas More visited Erasmus in Antwerp, and it was there that he met a young Portuguese sailor who inspired him to write Utopia. Years later, a young Portuguese humanist, diplomat and businessman went to visit Erasmus. In this lecture we will follow the trajectory of Damião de Góis, from the year of the death of Thomas More in 1535 to his imprisonment by the Portuguese Inquisition in the 1570s, in order to understand how an intellectual world ended by the middle of the 16th century but, nonetheless, bequeath to us a certain idea of Europe and even globalization.

ABOUT RUI TAVARES

Rui Tavares is a Portuguese writer and historian and the Spring 2020 Gulbenkian/Saab Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies at UMass Lowell. He studied Art History at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Social Sciences at the Universidade de Lisboa, and earned a PhD in History and Civilizations from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales de Paris. He has been visiting distinguished lecturer at Brown University and NYU. Among his seven books is The Enlightened Censor, published in 2018, on censorship in the Portuguese Enlightenment regime of the Marquis de Pombal. He has also translated, into Portuguese, Giordano Bruno’s On Magic and Voltaire’s Candide. He was Member of the European Parliament (2009-2014). Among his publications/reports on European Union affairs is The Irony of the European Project (2012). He is founder of the Portuguese political party Livre, a major cultural critic in Portugal and a columnist at the leading daily newspaper Público.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information, contact Natalia Melo of the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies by email: Natalia_Melo@uml.edu.

Travel to Lisbon, Portugal with UMass Lowell during the Summer for an Immersive Experience!

Enjoy a unique international experience in Lisbon, the largest city and capital of Portugal, one of the countries of the European Union. Immerse yourself in this at once ancient and modern waterfront city characterized by a thrilling culture, delicious cuisine, and booming nightlife. Spend two weeks exploring everything Lisbon has to offer while earning 3 UMass Lowell credits.

Application Deadline: March 15, 2020.

OPEN TO ALL UNIVERSITY MAJORS.

• May 31 - June 13, 2020
• Special Topics: in Portuguese Studies, the required 3-credit course, can be used towards the Core Curriculum Arts & Humanities Perspective requirement, the World Ready: Portuguese Option, the Minor in Portuguese Studies
• Financial aid may be applicable.
• Scholarships available up to $1,500

More Information

For more Information and to apply, please contact the UMass Lowell Study Abroad office via email: studyabroad@uml.edu or contact Diana Gomes Simoes via email: Diana_GomesSimoes@uml.edu.

UMass Lowell 2020 Summer Program in Lisbon is sponsored by the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies and the Department of World Languages and Cultures in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Program undertaken in partnership with the Study in Portugal Network (SIPN).

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