Groups
Arts and Humanities
Investigator in charge: Francisco Paiva
The group of ARTS AND HUMANITIES considers man as a cultural, sensitive and creative player, analyzing how he is and as he projects himself in space and time. Focuses on the ways, supports and means of expression and fixing the "image of itself ", its commu nication, and critical reception, with special attention to artistic events (film, visual arts, design, performing arts, literature, multimedia). Provides an interdisciplinary approach to the modulation of knowledge and imaginary, develops fundamental and applied research in the Culture and New Humanities strand, in three complementary areas: a) Memory and Identity under media condition, on the dynamics between content, media and technologies; b) Representation as Process, relating to the phenomena of emanation in procedural arts; and c) Intersections of Culture, Information and Interface Design, integrating methodologies of art, science and the humanities to create new knowledge.
Communication and Media
Investigator in charge: Anabela Gradim Alves
Focused on the notion of mediation, the group of COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA studies the technological and social aspects of that mediation in a simultaneously theoretical and experimental manner. More than a mere "communication society", contemporary society is thus assumed to be a mediatized society, that is, a society in which technological mediation - particularly, the one carried out by the "new media" - has become a decisive factor of economy, culture, arts, politics and everyday life. A factor which, because it is new and decisive, poses equally new and decisive problems, pertaining to the redefinition and reconfiguration of the public sphere, of professional communicative practices such as journalism, advertising or public relations, of political communication in a democracy, of the borders between public and private, or even of the new processes of creation and diffusion of arts and science.
Practical Philosophy
Investigator in charge: José Manuel Santos
Starting with the matrix question about humanities, "how to live?", the group of PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY begins by specifying the issue from the perspective of individual existence, that is, in the ethical field. However, living "humanly" means living in a "political" community. Questions about ethics and political thought were always at the heart of the humanities. This group develops research in normative ethics and applied ethics, mainly applied to communication and politics. In the case of the latter, the aim is to study the implications of ethical normativity in the political arena. This leads to, for example, projects on the theory and practice of human rights. In the field of political normativity, the main research objective is democracy, considered as the most appropriate form of political community for a good human life. However, modern democracy, both representative and liberal, raises obvious issues. One of the key work areas of PPh Group will be the study of these problems taking into account the classics of political thought and modern theories of democracy.
