Funded Projects

Funded Projects

Extraterrestrial Post-Humanism: the Search for Alien Life in Astrobiology, Science-Fiction and Bio Art

National Project

This project wishes, firstly, to survey recent Sci-Fi literature and look for plausible representations of extraterrestrial life. The preliminary search we have conducted shows us that very few works deal with “uncharismatic” life forms like bacteria. Those that do normally do not place much emphasis on alien microorganisms per se but rather highlight the struggle of humans to find extraterrestrial life. It is this aesthetic, philosophical and experiential gap that this project will try to fill. Our aim is thus, secondly, to complement SF by way of Bio Art. If we want to commune with these strange creatures, understand their diversity and experience the richness of their world, then we need works of art that allow us to go beyond intellection and vision and use all of our senses (touch, smell, taste and hearing) to know which particular species we are dealing with. We believe that this approach might help us cultivate, in ourselves and in the general public, a stronger affective relation to the microorganisms that surround us as well as those we might find in outer space.

Host institution

Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa

Duration

2025

Detailed info

To See the Tree and the Forest. Reading the Poetry of António Ramos Rosa from a Distance

National Project

This is an exploratory research project hosted by ILCML-FLUP and funded by FCT (2022.08122.PTDC). The project has Bruno Ministro as the Principal Investigator and applies computational methods of text analysis to the complete works of António Ramos Rosa. Drawing on concepts from ecocriticism and new materialisms, the project’s team investigates how entities such as plants, animals, and minerals are part of a poetic construct that conceives the world from an ecological perspective. In addition to its core framework, the project comprises two components dedicated to digital aesthetics and electronic literature. With this, the project contributes to the emergent fields of Digital Environmental Humanities and Creative Digital Humanities.

The research team members are Bruno Ministro (Principal Investigator, ILCML), Ana Paula Coutinho (Co-Principal Investigator, ILCML), João Paulo Guimarães (ILCML), Paulo Silva Pereira (CLP – University of Coimbra), and Helena Costa Carvalho (CLEPUL – University of Lisbon). The consultants are Manuel Portela (CLP – U. Coimbra) and Martin Paul Eve (Birkbeck, University of London). 

Host institution

Margarida Losa Institute for Comparative Literature

Duration

2023 - 2025

Detailed info

Utopia, Food and the Future:
Utopian Thinking and the Construction of Inclusive Societies – a contribution from the Humanities

International Project

This research project was hosted by ILCML and CETAPS, and was developed in partnership with the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) and the Nutritionists Professional Association. It was funded by the FEDER Funds through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Programme – COMPETE 2020 and by Portuguese National Funds through FCT – the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/CPC-ELT/5676/2014 | POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016680). Bringing together 27 researchers from different disciplines, the project proposed, through utopian, holistic and prospective thinking, a multidisciplinary approach to the debate on future conditions of food production and consumption in order to highlight their political, economic, social and cultural implications. The Project covered three main fields of action united by a unique methodological approach.

Host institution

Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa and Centre for English, Translation, and Anglo-Portuguese Studies

Duration

2015 - 2018

Detailed info

New Portuguese Letters 40 Years Later

International Project

This project, funded by the FCT (PTDC/CLE-LLI/110473/2009), focused on the critical reception of one of the most translated Portuguese books of all time – the book New Portuguese Letters, published in 1972 by Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa –, reporting on the research carried out in Portugal and in several Western countries over the last forty years.

Promoting network research on the national and international reception of New Portuguese Letters, this project relied on a large international team of researchers. With the scientific coordination of Ana Luísa Amaral, it mapped the impact of the book in the following countries and geographical areas: Germany, Brazil, Spain, United States of America, France, England, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Angola and Mozambique. The results were published in two books: Novas Cartas Portuguesas: Entre Portugal e o Mundo (Dom Quixote, 2014) and New Portuguese Letters to the World (Peter Lang, 2015).

Host institution

Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa

Duration

2009 - 2014

Detailed info

Literary Utopias and Utopian Thinking: Portuguese Culture and the Western Intellectual Tradition

International Project

The three editions of the research project “Literary Utopias and Utopian Thought: Portuguese Culture and the Intellectual Western Tradition”, funded by FCT (POCTI/ELT/38653/2001; POCTI/ELT/46201/2002; PTDC/ELT/67788/2006), sought to show how Utopian Studies are a multidisciplinary research field with relevance in the context of Portuguese culture.

Coordinated by Fátima Vieira, the work undertaken by the team of researchers has made the map of literary utopia and utopianism in Portugal clearer, not only through the creation of the Biblioteca das Utopias collection, dedicated to the critical editing of Portuguese texts with an utopian outlook, but also by exploring lines of enquiry corresponding to areas that have proved to be structural for utopian thought in Portugal: Utopia and Law; Utopia and Spirituality; Utopia and Science; Utopia and Gender; Utopia and Space; Utopia and Diaspora; Utopia and Vegetarianism; Utopia and Translation.

The “EUROTOPIA 2100: An Interactive Utopia” initiative was one of the many activities promoted by these research projects. Aimed at young students of different age groups, EUROTOPIA invited reflection on Europe and its future through the creation and publication of hyperutopias (utopias published on the Internet and operating through links).

Host institution

Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa

Duration

Project I: 2002 - 2003
Project II: 2004 - 2006
Project III: 2007 - 2010

Detailed info

New Portuguese Letters Three Decades Later

International Project

Under the scientific coordination of Ana Luísa Amaral, this scientific project funded by FCT (PIHM/ELT/63706/2005) had as its main scientific result the annotated edition of New Portuguese Letters, by Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, published by D. Quixote, in 2010.

Host institution

Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa

Duration

2005 - 2008

Detailed info

This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. Privacy Policy