As Viagens da Saudade

International Colloquium
Lisboa / Porto / Santiago de Compostela
29-31 de Outubro

The matter and the sentiment of "saudade" have been considered

characteristic of the Galician-Portuguese and Lusophone culture, both popular
and erudite, from the medieval cancioneiros to our present time. Arising
implicitly and still unnamed in "Cantigas de amigo", it would later be named as
"Saudade" in them and would remain striking, as an expression of love wounded
by absence, "in the best works of Portuguese literature" (Carolina Michaeë lis de
Vasconcelos). Progressively assumed as an object of reflection, it becomes a
recurrent theme of some aspects of philosophical thought developed in Portugal
and Galicia, from the 15th century to the present. Since the paradigmatic polemic
between Teixeira de Pascoaes and Antoó nio Seó rgio, the debate between the
defenders of the cultural singularity of saudade and those of its universality
remains open. Antoó nio Seó rgio established a set of feelings that would be
equivalent in other peoples, languages and cultures, and that list was later
augmented by other authors. Teixeira de Pascoaes was generally considered as
the unilateral defender of the national and cultural singularity of saudade, but
even him eventually recognizes that the sentiment of longing, in addition to
having an old and not national genesis, arises in other cultures, parallel to its
presence in the Portuguese people and authors:

“Acabamos de estudar as formas que a Saudade adquiriu desde

Virgíólio a frei Agostinho da Cruz; desde o seu nascimento em Roma ateó aà
sua divinizaçaã o na Arraó bida.
Seria curioso observar tambeó m as suas viagens laó por fora, pela
França de Rousseau, Victor Hugo e Renan; pela Inglaterra de Shelley,
Keats, Wordsworth, etc.; pela Alemanha de Novalis e dos Filoó sofos
panteíóstas… A Saudade de Camoã es errou no mundo como o D. Quixote de
Cervantes. Compare-se o lirismo camoniano e o de Frei Agostinho da
Cruz com a tristeza coó smica dos grandes poetas ingleses, com o
misticismo profundo de Novalis, com o panteíósmo sombrio de Hugo e o
celtismo sentimental de Renan…” (Os Poetas Lusíadas).
 It is these "voyages" of the word saudade, or their relationships with
related affective tones, that the Colloquium aims to investigate, noting that for a
century, a matter so present in Galician-Portuguese and Portuguese-speaking
culture is still an open question which has not been systematically and
thoroughly studied. It is thus a question of opening the horizon of research and
reflection beyond the insular domain in which it tends to be restricted, inviting
researchers from various countries who in this and other initiatives might help to
understand the experience of longing in the light of its natural relation with
experiences such as the Greek eros and anamnesis, the Latin desiderium, the
memory and desire of God in the Abrahamic religions, nostalgia and melancholy,
Castilian soledad, Catalan anyoransa, English longing, German Sehnsucht and
Romanian dor, among others; not mentioning multiple extra-European affinities.
It is also a question of opening the horizon beyond the anthropocentric and
western sphere, considering the possibility of finding in the non-human living
and in the world indicators of a nostalgic subjectivity or dynamism. This will
result in a richer and deeper understanding of the semantic and experiential
complexity of the longing as expressed in Galician-Portuguese and Portuguese-
speaking cultures.

Scientific Committee

Pablo Beneito (Univ. Murcia)

Paulo Borges
Celeste Nataó rio
Luíós G. Soto
 Organizing Committee

Rodrigo Araujo
Fabrizio Boscaglia
Dirk-Michael Hennrich
Luíós Loó ia
Nuno Ribeiro
Claudia Souza

Organization:

Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa

(Seminaó rio Permanente de Pensamento e Cultura Lusoó fonos)
Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

Support:

Grupo de Investigaçaã o SAUDADE

Cíórculo do Entre-Ser