Mapping Twentieth-Century History: PhD Theses Defended between 2010 and 2018 in Portugal1 Maria Inácia Rezola2 Abstract In Portugal, twentieth-century history has benefited from greater public visibility and recognition, boosting the publishing industry and enjoying a regular presence in the media. Despite this popularity, little attention has been paid to the dynamics of history teaching and research at higher education institutions, especially at the PhD level. This article attempts to provide a broad overview of the PhD dissertations defended at Portuguese universities between 2010 and 2018. Presented under the scope of the considerable number of PhD programs offered by different universities, these theses are characterized by the diversity of the methods applied, the different areas of expertise and the range of topics covered. Despite the limitations of our inquiry, we hope to present some clues for a broader and deeper understanding of recent trends in Portuguese historiography. Keywords Twentieth-century history; Portugal—PhD theses; Portuguese historiography; PhD programs; Portuguese universities Resumo Em Portugal, a história do século XX tem beneficiado de grande visibilidade e reconhecimento público, impulsionando a indústria editorial e desfrutando de uma presença regular nos meios de comunicação social. Apesar desta popularidade, tem-se dado pouca atenção à dinâmica da investigação e do ensino da História nas instituições de ensino superior, especialmente no nível do 3.º ciclo. Este artigo procura fornecer uma visão de conjunto das dissertações de doutoramento defendidas nas universidades portuguesas entre 2010 e 2018. Apresentadas no âmbito do considerável número de programas de doutoramento oferecidos por diferentes universidades, essas teses caracterizam-se pela diversidade dos métodos adoptados, das áreas de especialização em que se desenvolvem e pela variedade de temas abordados. Apesar das limitações da nossa análise, esperamos lançar pistas para uma compreensão mais ampla e profunda das tendências recentes da historiografia portuguesa. Palavras-chave História do século XX; Portugal—teses de doutoramento; Historiografia portuguesa; Programas doutorais; Universidades portuguesas 1 With an accompanying annex on pages 349-444 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 School of Communication and Media Studies (ESCS-IPL) & Institute of Contemporary History (IHC-UNL). E-Mail: [email protected]. Rezola Mapping Twentieth-century History The emergence of Twentieth-Century History as a distinct academic discipline in Portugal is a recent phenomenon. Before the overthrow of the longstanding Portuguese dictatorship (1926-1974), the number of studies devoted to it was scarce, and we had to wait until the beginning of the 1980s to witness a decisive methodological and conceptual renewal. The new political environment of that decade (which marked the end of the period of democratic transition and consolidation) provides a good explanation for this turning point, to which we can also add the urgent need to explain, interpret, and understand a recent past. It would be unfair to ignore the previous attempts that were made to break away from the dictatorship’s predominantly historiographical framework through the publication of such books as Joel Serrão’s Dicionário de História de Portugal (1963-1971) or Oliveira Marques’s História de Portugal (1972). Together with the thematic and conceptual innovativeness of these works, it should be emphasized that it was due to Marques’s research that Contemporary History first began to gain visibility. Nevertheless, it may be said that, before the 1980s, the history of the twentieth century remained a great unknown in Portugal, especially the history of the period between May 28, 1926 and April 25, 1974. Bearing in mind this urgent desire to open new frontiers, it should not be forgotten that the study of the recent past, which was, in many ways, a contentious period, encountered several obstacles and met with great resistance. One of the most important battles was to overcome the prejudice which considered that recent history was not an academic discipline, but instead a form of journalism, as its concerns were so closely rooted in the present and historians were too close to (and perhaps themselves too deeply involved in) events to be able to make suitable historical judgements. It should be noted that, although we may consider this debate to be somewhat outdated, it is not yet fully closed, as has been shown by the recent controversy over the proposed Salazar museum. There is much evidence illustrating the progressive recognition of Contemporary History in Portugal. It can be seen not only in the dynamism of the publishing market and the regular presence of historians in the media, but also in the burgeoning number of research centers (which played a leading role in the process) and in the many Master’s and PhD degree programs in Modern and Contemporary History. First of all, however, we should bear in mind that, unlike some countries where Contemporary History is taken to mean the period following the end of the World War II, in Portugal this concept encompasses not only the early twentieth century, but also the nineteenth century. We will focus our attention here only on the former. 333 e-JPH, Vol. 17, number 2, December 2019 Rezola Mapping Twentieth-century History With this article, we intend to present a broad overview of the PhD dissertations defended at Portuguese universities from 2010 to 2018, considering those whose central scope was the history of the twentieth century. Involving a corpus of 185 PhD theses, the analysis proved to be quite problematic given the diversity of methods used, the different areas of expertise, and the wide range of topics covered, which made systematizing the information a rather difficult task. Furthermore, we had to deal with the absence of certain information (relating to abstracts and keywords) and the impossibility of accessing the full text of some of the theses. Despite these limitations, we hope to provide a sufficiently clear overview to be able to identify certain trends in recent Portuguese historiography. We must also make one final caveat: even taking into account the limits and specificities of the question that we intend to analyze, this study would clearly benefit from the inclusion of other data which we were not able to obtain and evaluate. Firstly, the number of PhD students who have benefited from a scholarship or an FCT research contract; next, the number of theses that have been published by either academic or commercial publishers; and, finally, the total number of PhD students who, after completing their theses, went on to pursue an academic careers, both as teachers and/or as researchers. These data could help us to paint a more accurate picture of the role played by the different universities and their doctoral programs in both the establishment and the renewal of this field of study. Doctoral Programs When studying the evolution of any discipline, it is useful to monitor the progress of the institutions that support and promote it, considering the strategies that they have adopted and assessing their ability to attract and train students. The number of programs that they offer, as well as the number of PhDs awarded, are somewhat superficial, but nonetheless useful indicators in this domain. As far as the first aspect is concerned, it should be noted that the 185 theses under analysis were presented under the scope of forty PhD programs offered by twenty-two faculties, departments or institutes of twelve universities. In regard to these figures, we must bear in mind that one of the programs—the Inter- University PhD Program in History: Change and Continuity in a Global World (PIUDHist)—is based on an inter-university consortium.3 Launched in the academic year of 2008-2009, this 3 For further information, see https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/en/post-graduation/phd/history. 334 e-JPH, Vol. 17, number 2, December 2019 Rezola Mapping Twentieth-century History program is a good example of a recent trend in Portuguese PhD programs; the assumption of an evident interdisciplinarity. It is obvious that History is inherently interdisciplinary. Nevertheless, even though most of the PhD programs clearly present themselves as being in the field of History (56%), those that openly adopt an interdisciplinary profile are beginning to gain important ground (24%). Yet, in other ways, this tendency is also evident in the fact that some of the theses originated in programs whose core is not History, not only displaying the importance of History in the study of subjects such as Communication, Economics, Education, Law, Theology, and Medicine, but also showing that the teaching of History and historical research are not limited to the faculties of arts and Humanities. Interdisciplinarity is to be found in the topics that were covered, the methodologies that were adopted, and the perspectives of analysis, and it is also to be noted in the structure and objectives of doctoral programs. Although we have no actual statistical data to support this statement, our analysis enables us to conclude that interdisciplinarity is increasingly common and that History is no longer viewed as a unitary discipline. Of the disciplines that most often intersect with History, we draw attention to the close dialogue that this subject now enjoys with Sociology, Literature, Political Science and International Relations, Anthropology, Law, Journalism, and Economics, among others. A glance at the overall data could lead to the conclusion that an average of twenty to twenty-one PhD theses were defended each year. Nevertheless, this calculation can be misleading, given that in the period under review, certain programs were ended while other new ones were created. Notwithstanding, this general assessment allows us to conclude that there was an almost steady growth in the number of theses until 2015, and that this figure began to fall and stagnate immediately thereafter.