Leiden University Student Repository

Silva Rêgo, António da (2015)

History in Times of Fascism. Discipline and Practices of History during the beginning of the Portuguese New State

Master thesis | History (MA)

In this thesis, I will research the academic practices of some selected historians during the first years of the Portuguese New State. These can be divided in two kinds of practices: those directly implicated in the histories they wrote — the final product —and those which are related to their habits and work ethics, be it of socialization with other scholars in academic organizations and correspondence, or work-habits related to how they thought history should be researched and transmitted. This approach provides a holistic view of particular cases within the Portuguese historiography landscape, focused on epistemic, political and moral aspects, and their connection with the Regime in which they were inserted. It also provides the key features of the phenomenon of Discipline at the time, given its emergence in Portuguese Academia, and in History in particular, highlighting the goods, virtues, skills and habits which defined History as collective endeavor.

scholarly personae

historiography

New State

fascism

Portugal

20th century

Author

Silva Rêgo, António da

Note

The main questions of this work are: (a) How was historical research produced at the time in question? (b) How did historians see themselves and their mission? (c) What personae defined the role of the historian, and how did they relate to each other? (d) Can we speak of a phenomenon of discipline or are we still dealing with a more atomized/personalized history-writing? (e) How did historians respond to the Regime and its presence in the University and society at large? The main goals of this research are to (1) illustrate the historical-academic landscape of the 1930s/1940s in Portugal; (2) characterize the practices of these historians in terms of the virtues they were committed to and the goods they pursued, in effect constructing the persona that populated the academic landscape; (3) characterize their styles of writing in tropological terms; (4) relate virtues and tropology, thus connecting theory and practice, and seeing how personae can be consequential; (5) relate this synthesis with the political Regime, comparing virtues, goals and speech-practices.

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

PCNI

Supervisors

Paul, Herman

ECTS Credits

40

Language

en