On 22 June 2026, the faculty hosted a symposium, bringing together historians and literary scholars to celebrate Professor Tom Earle's 80th birthday. Professor Earle, the first holder of the King John II Statutory Professorship of Portuguese, has continued to be a prolific, groundbreaking scholar in his retirement.

Dedicated to exploring the relationship between the disciplines of history and literary studies, the symposium sought to understand how rhetoric and narrative change our understanding of early modern textual materials, such as chronicles or archival documents. The discussion focused on how methods developed in history and in literary studies can be combined to interrogate what is not said in textual sources.

Participants included Simon Park (Oxford), Zoltan Biedermann (UCL), Kate Lowe (QMUL), Sheila Hue (UE-RJ), Giuseppe Marcocci (Oxford), Hélio Alves (Lisbon), and Thomas Earle himself. Professor Earle's successor as King John II Professor, Phillip Rothwell, said "Professor Earle's innate intellectual curiosity is what keeps him eighty years young. I continue to learn so much with him."

This event was supported by the Cátedra D. João II, part of the Camões I.P. research network.