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The Course seeks to offer an overview of the Contemporary History of Portugal from the liberal system constitutionalization to the post-revolutionary democratization process after April 25, 1974. At the end of the course, students should be able to:
1. Recognize and relate the nineteenth and twentieth centuries historical cycles, from the establishment of liberalism to the authoritarian forms of regime and the continuities and discontinuities of the Portuguese colonial experience.
2. Relate historiographical debates and models of analysis concerning Contemporary History of Portugal main cycles and events.
3. Mobilize bibliography, sources, and different methodologies to study this historical period.

Part I. The establishment of Liberalism in Portugal: revolution, identity, and sovereignty 
Introduction to Contemporary History of Portugal
1. Modern state and national identity definition
2. Liberal constitutionalization, sovereignty and territorial administrative organization

Part II. Imperialism: “civilizing mission” and racial ideology
3. Modern African Empire (1890-1898)
4. The “civilizing mission”, economic and ideological intercessions

Part III. The Republic: project, experience, and crisis
5. Republic, secularization, and civil religion
6. The Great War, discourse, experience, and memory
7. Fall of the First Republic, political and socio-economic crisis

Part IV. Estado Novo: ideological project, socio-economic organization and "política de espírito”
8. Estado Novo, totalizing ideological project
9. Corporatism, socio-economic organization, and emigration
10. Modernism and “política de espírito”
11. Late Colonialism, Propaganda and Censorship

Part V. Democracy: decolonisation, revolution, and memory(ies)
12. Colonial War and War of Independence
13. 25 April, historiographical approaches, and remembrance
14. Legacy(ies) of the colonial past

 

The Theoretical-Practical (TP) sessions will consist of teaching activities and discussion around the course content, supported on bibliography and supplementary materials. At the same time, an explanation of historical context and historiography will be carried out. Students’ participation is fundamental for the debate around the classes’ topics and the materials provided. The Tutorial Orientation (TO) sessions will focus on tools of historiographical learning and production.

Approval in this module requires:
1. 75% attendance of lectures, both Theory-practical and Tutorials.
2. minimal score of 10 (ten) out of 20 in a test and an essay).

Students will have access to all course materials through the Sigarra platform, namely (i) detailed program, (ii) class summaries, (iii) bibliography and complementary materials.

The written tests consist in answering two out of four questions about the course contents.
The essays should have about 10 pages.

For foreign students, assessments may be presented inn Spanish, English, French or Italian.