RIAL—Reality and Imagination in Art and Literature

Coord: Amândio Reis

RIAL aims to promote a critical discussion around the concepts of reality and imagination. These terms are considered both in their historical scope and their present relevance, and in connection with adjacent notions in the context of art and literary studies, such as: fiction, realism, invention, imaginary, imitation, and representation. With a diverse team of researchers at different career stages, working in the fields of film and literary studies, material culture, philosophy and art history, RIAL has a markedly diverse, interdisciplinary profile.

A balance between cohesiveness and specificity in the work of team members is at the basis of all proposed activities, including: regular team meetings for the discussion of works in progress; one-day meetings and small colloquia, open to the public, on specific topics; lectures with invited speakers; conferences; courses and workshops; film cycles; and publications in various formats.


Objectives

Considering the diversity of proposed tasks, RIAL is guided by the following common goals:
 

• interrogating the historical dichotomy between reality and imagination and investigate the ways in which it manifests in theory and practice;
   
• charting the spatial and temporal transformations of this problem, including its current configurations, across different forms of art and expression but also in the context of critical and theoretical trends; 
   
• contributing to the field of Interart Studies and to the work conducted in the THELEME Group and the Centre for Comparative Studies with research that, by paying special attention to the potential in exploring our main concepts, is prompt to underline the specificities as much as the common processes considering different artforms and media;
   
• collaborating with other research units and external researchers, aiming to enlarge the outreach of the research carried out in the Subgroup (and in Group THELEME), and looking to promote a plurality of perspectives and approaches to our main topics and objects of inquiry;
   
• organizing activities in partnership with cultural institutions outside academia, aiming to not only to disseminate our research outputs, but also to extend the debate around them to a larger and heterogeneous audience.

Key publications

2015—2020

• 2020. J. Bértolo, F. Guerreiro and C. Rowland (orgs), Imitações da Vida: Cinema Clássico Americano —Ensaios para Mário Jorge Torres (Bookbuilders) — 2022 AIM [Association of Moving Image Researchers] Award for Best Collection of Writings
• 2020. J. Bértolo, Espectros do Cinema: Manoel de Oliveira e João Pedro Rodrigues (Documenta)
• 2020. J. Bértolo e M. Medeiros (eds), RCL — Journal of Communication and Languages No. 53: Photography, Cinema, and the Ghostly (IC-NOVA). DOI: https://doi.org/10.34619/55s6-rw65
• 2019. J. Childs (ed.), Espelhos do Film Noir (Documenta)
• 2019. F. Guerreiro e J. Bértolo (eds), Morte e Espectralidade nas Artes e na Literatura (Húmus)
• 2019. J. Bértolo, Sobreimpressões: Leituras de Filmes (Documenta) — 2021 AIM [Association of Moving Image Researchers] Award for Best Monograph
• 2017. F. Guerreiro, Imagens Roubadas (Enfermaria 6)
• 2016. J. Bértolo, Imagens em Fuga: Os Fantasmas de François Truffaut (Documenta)
• 2016. F. Guerreiro, Cinema El Dorado – Cinema e Modernidade (Colibri)
• 2015. A. Reis, O Livro Encenado: Escrita e Representação em A. T. Pereira (Colibri)

Previous activities

2016—2019

• 2019 [20 December]: Open Lecture by Guillaume Bourgois (U. Grenoble Alpes): "Ida Lupino: Melodramas de uma Mulher Desconhecida" (FLUL)
• 2019 [19 December]: RIAL Seminar "A Vida das Coisas" (FLUL)
• 2019 [18 December]: RIAL Seminar "O Cinema na Fronteira: Passagens entre Ficção e Documentário" (FLUL) — in partnership with IFILNOVA/FCSH
• 2018 [17 October]: RIAL Seminar "Espelhos do Film Noir" (FLUL)
• 2018 [26 April]: RIAL Seminar "O Realismo Espectral da Imagem Fotográfica" (FLUL)
• 2017 [3 July]: Open Lecture by Guillaume Bourgois (U. Grenoble Alpes): "Mr. Avery sou eu": elementos de releitura de Madame Bovary em Bigger than Life (1956), de Nicholas Ray" (FLUL)
• 2017 [14 December]: One-day meeting "Máscaras de Cera: O Espectáculo da Morte na Literatura e nas Artes dos Séculos XIX e XX" (FLUL)
• 2017 [7 December]: 2nd Symposium on Nineteenth-Century Literature: Family Plots (FLUL)
• 2017 [16 May]: One-day meeting "Machado de Assis e a Ideia de Ficção" (Casa Fernando Pessoa, Lisboa) — in partnership with Casa Fernando Pessoa)
• 2016 [13 October]: Open Seminar "Melodrama entre as artes" (FLUL)