Recent Paths in Nineteenth-Century History: Diversity and Modernity of a Historiographic Field1
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Recent Paths in Nineteenth-century History: Diversity and Modernity of a Historiographic Field1 Conceição Meireles Pereira2 Abstract This study focuses on a set of ninety-six doctoral theses related to Modern History— nineteenth-century carried out in Portuguese universities between 2010 and 2018 and aims to analyze their distribution among the referred schools and doctoral programs, their main scientific focus and studied geographical spaces, evidencing the occurrence of these variants over the nine years under study in order to check for patterns or trends in this field. Keywords PhD theses; Portuguese universities; Nineteenth-century history; Scientific focus Resumo Este estudo debruça-se sobre um conjunto de noventa e seis teses de doutoramento relativas à História do século XIX realizadas em universidades portuguesas entre 2010 e 2018 e pretende analisar a sua distribuição pelas referidas escolas e programas doutorais, as suas principais áreas temáticas e espaços geográficos estudados, evidenciando ainda a ocorrência destas variantes pelos nove anos em estudo com o objetivo de verificar se há modelos ou tendências neste domínio. Palavras-chave Teses de doutoramento; Universidades portuguesas; História do século 19; Áreas temáticas 1 With an accompanying annex on pages 284-331 prepared by the editors of e-JPH with the assistance of Elsa Lorga Vila (Graduate of University of Evora; Master’s Degree in History—Nova University of Lisbon). 2 University of Porto. Faculty of Arts, Porto, Portugal. E-Mail: [email protected] Pereira Recent Paths in Nineteenth-century History The following analysis examines the doctoral theses produced in the field of “Modern History: Nineteenth-Century”—one of the eight categories established for the classification of 825 PhD theses in the general scientific area of History presented at Portuguese universities during the last nine years (2010-2018). This group consists of ninety- six doctoral theses, which represents just under 12% of the total. Evidently, during the period considered here, the twentieth century and the present day attracted greater interest on the part of researchers in Portugal than the century of Liberalism. However, some initial considerations should be made regarding this category and its temporal designation. Some of the theses included in this group actually span broader periods than the nineteenth century, since they begin in previous centuries and/or extend into the next one, not only continuing as far as the period of the Great War (which, in Anglo- Saxon historiography, usually marks the beginning of the twentieth century), but even, and obviously in very rare cases, extending into the second half of this century. There is, in fact, a great chronological and temporal diversity to be noted, since, among this group of studies, we can find theses adopting longitudinal and diachronic approaches spanning several centuries, while others opted, instead, for synchronic analyses, sometimes covering just a very short period of time, ranging from less than half a dozen years to little over a decade. While the chronologies of some theses are a little fuzzy, focusing, for instance (as their own titles indicate), on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most theses (about 80%) have the nineteenth century as their essential core and actually indicate the chronology of their study as being between two dates, although the time gap can be very variable. A few theses begin their chronological analysis before the nineteenth century (around 13%), some select periods of time exclusively within the nineteenth century (nearly 33%), while the majority expand their research into the twentieth century (54%). 271 e-JPH, Vol. 17, number 2, December 2019 Pereira Recent Paths in Nineteenth-century History Number of Theses 50 51% 45 40 35 30 25 20 19% 17% 15 10 7% 5 3% 2% 1% 0 Lisbon Porto Coimbra Évora Azores Minho Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro University Regions Fig. 1: Geographical distribution of universities (2010-2018) As far as their geographical distribution (Fig. 1) is concerned, most theses were produced at universities in Lisbon, which is not surprising since the largest number of such schools are, in fact, located in the capital—Universidade de Lisboa (School of Arts and Humanities, Institute of Education, Institute of Social Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Faculty of Law); Universidade Nova de Lisboa (School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Sciences and Technology); ISCTE-IUL (School of Sociology and Public Policy); Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Faculty of Human Sciences); Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (Department of History, Arts and Humanities)—accounting for a total of forty-nine PhD theses, i.e. just over half of the texts under consideration. The city of Porto comes in second place, with theses being completed, as was the case in Lisbon, at both public and private universities, although with only very few in the latter case—Universidade do Porto (Faculty of Arts and Humanities); Universidade Portucalense (Department of Tourism Heritage and Culture); Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Institute of Health Sciences; School of Arts)—accounting for eighteen theses, which represents almost 19% of the total. Coimbra follows Porto very closely, with sixteen theses, all produced within the institutional framework of the Universidade de Coimbra (Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research), accounting for nearly 17% of all cases under scrutiny. 272 e-JPH, Vol. 17, number 2, December 2019 Pereira Recent Paths in Nineteenth-century History Lower numbers were produced in the city of Évora (Institute for Advanced Studies and Research of the Universidade de Évora) with seven theses, the archipelago of the Azores (School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade dos Açores) with three theses (all about Azorean themes), Minho, in the northwest of Portugal (Institute of Social Sciences of the Universidade do Minho) with two theses, and finally the northeast area of the country, Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (through the School of Human and Social Sciences of the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro) with just one. The theses produced at the universities mentioned in this paragraph account for just over 13% of the total. One aspect of particular interest for this analysis was the number of PhD theses carried out at different universities throughout that period. 1- Department of Tourism Heritage and Culture of the Universidade Portucalense 2- Department of History, Arts and Humanities of the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa 3- Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Universidade de Coimbra 4- Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Universidade do Porto 5- Faculty of Human Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa 6- Faculty of Law of the Universidade de Lisboa 7- Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the Universidade de Coimbra 8- Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa 9- Faculty of Sciences of the Universidade de Lisboa 10- Institute for Advanced Studies and Research of the Universidade de Évora 11- Institute for Interdisciplinary Research of the Universidade de Coimbra 12- Institute of Education of the Universidade de Lisboa 13- Institute of Health Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa 14- Institute of Social Sciences of the Universidade de Lisboa 15- Institute of Social Sciences of the Universidade do Minho 16- School of Arts and Humanities of the Universidade de Lisboa 17- School of Arts of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa 273 e-JPH, Vol. 17, number 2, December 2019 Pereira Recent Paths in Nineteenth-century History 18- School of Human and Social Sciences of the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro 19- School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade dos Açores 20- School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa 21- School of Sociology and Public Policy of ISCTE-IUL Fig. 2: Number of theses per school/university per year (2010-2018) A first glance at Fig. 2 reveals that a substantial number of schools/universities developed only a few PhD theses in Modern History (nineteenth-century) during 2010-2018: in fact, fifteen of the twenty-one institutions produced four or fewer. On the other hand, in 2018, theses were presented at only three institutions: three theses at both the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Universidade de Coimbra and the School of Arts and Humanities of the Universidade de Lisboa, and two at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. In the previous year, the Universidade de Coimbra also had three theses, while the other two had one each. Incidentally, these three institutions show the highest level of production: the first and the third with thirteen theses each, and the second with twelve. Completing the top five institutions in terms of the number of theses produced are the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Universidade do Porto, in fourth place (eleven theses), and the Institute for Advanced Studies and Research of the Universidade de Évora and the Institute of Education of the Universidade de Lisboa, in equal fifth place, with seven PhD theses each. It should be stressed that it is not only schools of social and human sciences that appear on this list, as some PhD theses were developed at schools of law, as well as schools of science and technology, namely the Institute of Social Sciences, the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Law (all at the Universidade de Lisboa), and the Faculties of Sciences and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and of the Universidade de Coimbra, and also at the Institute of Health Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, a situation that necessarily had repercussions at the thematic level, with emphasis on the History of Legal Thought and, more often, the History of Science, as will be shown. 274 e-JPH, Vol.