The Portuguese Research Seminar runs every fortnight during term time, usually on a Tuesday afternoon in even weeks, and brings together colleagues and postgraduate students from across the Portuguese sub-faculty, as well as those with an interest in the Luso-Brazilian world based in Oxford and the surrounding areas. It provides a friendly, respectful and supportive environment in which a wide range of research areas are discussed. Due to the generous sponsorship of the Instituto Camões, speakers from Portugal regularly lead seminars. We also invite a PGR student to present their work at least once a term, as well as early career faculty members, who receive constructive feedback on their presentations. Recent invited speakers have included Ana Luísa Amaral, Viktor K. Mendes, Margarida Calafate Ribeiro, Carolin Overhoff, and David Jackson.

Tu 20 October (w2)     Elizabeth Kutesko (University of the Arts, London)

“Fashion at the Frontier: Photography, Time and Colonial Modernity on Brazil’s Madeira-Mamoré Railroad”

2pm, Davis Room, St Peter’s College, Oxford OX1 2DL

Fr 23 October (w2)      Marcelo Amaro (Brazilian Musician)

7pm, Concert at Merton College Chapel

Tu 3 November (w5)   Lúcia Costigan (Ohio State University)

                                    Chaired by Marcelo Lachat

                                    2pm, St Anne’s College. Title and Room TBC

Tu 17 November (w6) Film Screening: ‘Carta a uma Jovem Escritora’

                                    [Letter to a Young Woman Writer] (dir. Marta Pessoa, 2026)

                                    Film screening (1h37m, English subtitles) 

                                    2pm, Dorfman Room, St Peter’s College

Tu 24 November (w7) Susana Moreira Marques 

Author reading and Q&A with the award-winning Portuguese journalist and novelist. 

Chaired by Claire Williams and Luísa Coelho. Event in English.

                                    2pm, Miles Room, St Peter’s College

Book Launch: Feminine Plural: Women in Transition in Luso-Hispanic Life-Writing (2026), edited by Claire Williams and Maria-José Blanco

5pm, Dorfman Room, St Peter’s College (registration needed, more information to follow)

For more information, please contact claire.williams@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk

All welcome! 

Please note the following 

NB: Statement on Research Seminar Inclusivity: The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages aims to provide seminar environments that are welcoming, supportive and safe, where diversity and inclusion are valued, and where scholars of all career-stages and backgrounds are entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect whilst engaging in academic debate.