PRR Project

Summary

Rationale NOVA FCSH seeks to expand its academic staff by appointing an Assistant Researcher in Cultural Mediations, with particular expertise in the repercussions of mediations in historical research. In this IHC/IN2PAST Chair position, the researcher is expected to develop groundbreaking research on forms of cultural mediation emerging in the modern period and developing throughout contemporaneity. The scientific profile will contribute to the history of cultural mediations, while simultaneously developing a reflection and intervention on the historiographical and archival challenges they pose. In consequence, the selected candidate will contribute to the development of the IN2PAST Associated Laboratory – in particular thematic line 4, “Archives, from Preventive Preservation to Digitalization” – and of several research axes of NOVA-FCSH, including “Media, Communication and Language”, “Memory and Patrimony”, and “Arts and Humanities”. Moreover, she/he will be integrated at the “Culture – Power, Mediations and the Arts” research group of the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC). Scientific profile The development of print culture (from books to the modern press), the recording and transmission of sound (from music industry to the radio) and the impact of visual culture (from photography to television and cinema) have all played a decisive role in the economic, social and political histories of the contemporary period. They stimulated technical innovations, reconfigured experience, modelled communication and challenged the most diverse historical subjects, from cultural agents to the State, mobilizing cultural industries and popular emotions and taste. Therefore, the researcher must inquiry into the political, economic and social power of cultural practices, analysing their role in the formation of nationalism and colonial imaginary, the development of markets and consumption, and in processes of social distinction, resistance and emancipation. Simultaneously, she/he must develop research in the history of these cultural practices in its relative autonomy. More than a set of tools in the representation of reality, cultural mediations are here seen as part of reality itself, in a period marked by the constitutive role of language, images and sounds in social life and modernization. This profile benefits from the so-called Cultural Turn and the development and renewal of Cultural History, opening up history to new objects and archives, including audiovisual sources. The researcher must therefore pay particular attention to the methodological, ethical and theoretical challenges posed by the nature of the sources they work with – image, text, orality – while simultaneously addressing the archival questions they raise. She/he is expected to work in cooperation with both public and private audiovisual archives. Key responsibilities In short, the researcher is expected to conduct several of the following research and academic tasks: •    To develop research in the history of modern/contemporary mediations, with particular attention to institutions and practices in different cultural fields, from the arts to communication; •    To contribute to the research life of the IHC, of the Associated Laboratory IN2PAST and of NOVA FCSH; •    To consider the diversity of forms, including the histories of the press, radio, television and/or other media, on the one hand, and the cultural and/or artistic practices, on the other, considering also the relative autonomy of each of these practices within the cultural, economic, political and social fields; •    To develop research on the history of mediations in contemporary Portugal, considering the impact of global and transnational processes in the emergence and development of these modern and contemporary cultural forms; •    To actively seek and apply for opportunities of national and international funding, and to guide research towards forms of dissemination in line with public policies of inclusive citizenship; •    To teach on a range of topics at different levels in different disciplines, such as cultural history, media studies and artistic studies; •    To consider the particularly contemporary nature of institutions and practices, including the kind of sources and archives they produce, and the challenges they pose for historians at different levels: preservation of archives; digitisation policies; ethical reflection on the use of audio-visual sources; the methodological implications of the audio-visual uses of the past.