UM holds international conference on historiography

The University of Macau’s Department of Portuguese and Research Centre for Luso-Asian Studies (CIELA) is hoisting the International Conference on Memorialist Discourses and the Building of History (Africa and Macau) until Friday.
The conference is focused on theoretical and epistemological questions related to memoirs, perceived as “sites of nation building,” of the political actors who took part in historical struggles in Macau and African Portuguese-speaking countries during the colonial era and post-independence period.
According to a statement issued by the institutions, conference participants will discuss methodologies involved in the analysis of written memoirs of political, social and cultural actors.
Particular attention is being given to the “unusual place” the region occupies on the borders of the Portuguese-speaking countries, as well as to its political actors and memorialist writings, in order to map the production of ‘memory locations.’
The conference will also cover postcolonial topics related to cultural and literary interconnections within the Portuguese-speaking world, namely in
Macau and Africa. These topics include memory and identity issues, historiographic discourse and official history, public and collective memoirs, and national ideology and writing the self.
Lectures to be delivered at the conference include “Memory, History and Fiction: The Meaning of Autobiographies,” by Lourenço Rosário, “Africa and the Africans: Paths of Brazilian Identity,” “Representing Macau in Portuguese Literature,” “The Pioneer Role of Macau in the Cultural Sino-Western Relations: the First Museum,” and the “English Library in China.”