04/02/2025
By Monica Melo

The Saab Center for Portuguese Studies, in partnership with the Department of World Languages and Cultures, presents the Spring 2025 Luso-American Foundation (FLAD)/Saab Lecture: "More Than Entertainment: Music as a Tool of Power and Politics in Portuguese History."

Inês Thomas Almeida
FLAD/Saab Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies at UMASS Lowell
Researcher at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (INET-md / NOVA FCSH)

Monday, April 7, 2025 at 5 p.m.
O'Leary Library Room 528 and via Zoom.
Free and open to the public
Parking in Wilder Lot, across from O’Leary Library, 61 Wilder St.

Note: This event has been rescheduled from April 2.


Music has long been a tool of power, shaping identities and political influence. In Portugal, it reinforced royal authority, aided missionary work, served as diplomatic currency, and influenced alliances and power dynamics. This lecture explores how music in Portugal has functioned as a force of persuasion, control, and resistance across history, in a deep entanglement with economic, social, and political structures.

Inês Thomas Almeida specializes in historical musicology, women’s studies, and cultural history. Her research focuses on 18th-century music, women’s musical practices, travel accounts, and transnational cultural networks. She leads the project “Female Music Practice in 18th-Century Portugal,” sponsored by the Foundation for Science and Technology of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. Her publications include "Vamos correr riscos: textos escolhidos de Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão" (2023), co-edited with Rui Vieira Nery, and “Musical Practices of Women in the Late 18th Century Around Marie-Angélique and Jeanne-Renée de Bombelles” (Adepa, 2023).

Sponsored by the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies and theLuso-American Foundation (FLAD)

For more information, email frank_sousa@uml.edu.