News News: Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies 42: Mapping the Public Rituals of the Portuguese Empire

The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture | Tagus Press is pleased to announce the publication of Mapping the Public Rituals of the Portuguese Empire (PLCS 42), edited by Joana Fraga (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Isabel Corrêa da Silva (Universidade de Lisboa), and Lisa Voigt (Yale University).

Present in all spaces of the Portuguese empire—which in the early modern period extended to four continents—public rituals offer a unique lens to compare cultural and political practices in different geographies, and to study their transmission and transformation on a global scale. Mapping the Public Rituals of the Portuguese Empire gathers articles that analyze and compare public rituals—including royal acclamations, solemn entries, religious processions, and autos-da-fé—in various areas of the Portuguese empire, from Lisbon to Macau and Goa in Asia; Bahia and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; and Luanda in Africa. With a focus on the spatial dimensions of ritual and the ethnic diversity of participants, the essays illuminate the various agendas, tensions, and dialogues on display in public rituals, and challenge simplistic readings of the relationship of public ritual to power and discipline, harmony and hierarchy.

Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies (PLCS) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed hybrid online and print journal that publishes original research related to the literatures and cultures of the diverse communities of the Portuguese-speaking world from a broad range of academic, critical and theoretical approaches. Founded in 1998, PLCS is published semi-annually by Tagus Press in the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

The open access version of PLCS is available through UMass Dartmouth’s Claire T. Carney Library by clicking here.

For more information, please contact PLCS Executive Editor Mario Pereira (mpereira6@umassd.edu).