University of California, Santa Barbara, Center for Portuguese Studies collection, 1968-1986

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Summary

Creators:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Center for Portuguese Studies, Oliver, Elide Valarini, and Sena, Jorge de
Abstract:
Audio recordings of interviews and lectures conducted during the early years of University of California, Santa Barbara's Center for Portuguese Studies.
Extent:
0.5 Linear Feet (8 audiocassette tapes)
Language:
Portuguese .
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], University of California, Santa Barbara, Center for Portuguese Studies collection, UArch 134. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection contains eight audio recordings of several prominent Brazilian and Portuguese scholars that were involved with UC Santa Barbara's Center for Portuguese Studies. A majority of the recordings feature Jorge de Sena, the founder of UCSB's Center for Portuguese Studies.

Biographical / historical:

The Center for Portuguese Studies at UC Santa Barbara was founded with an endowment from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to promote and develop studies about the Portuguese speaking world in California and the United States of America. The Center sponsors students and activities and supports teaching and degree programs and promotes the study of the literature, language, and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world. Services and activities include awarding student scholarships and stipends, promoting Portuguese language classes, hosting colloquia, maintaining the Center library, and sponsoring publications.

Jorge de Sena was a Portuguese-born civil engineer, poet, critic, essayist, novelist, playwright, translator and university professor. During António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo, de Sena was exiled to Brazil in 1959, and subsequently, after the military coup in Brazil in 1964, to the United States, in 1965.

After arriving in the U.S., de Sena and his family, Mécia de Sena (née Lopes) and their nine children, moved to Madison, Wisconsin where he began teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison as a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Academic opportunity brought the family to UC Santa Barbara in 1970, where Jorge took a position as a professor of Portuguese and comparative literature. During his time at UCSB, de Sena was responsible for developing the Portuguese part of the Spanish and Portuguese department, as well as the Center for Portuguese Studies. He also held the position of Chairman for both the Spanish and Portuguese department and the department of Comparative Literature.

After his death in 1978, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a Lisbon-based philanthropic organization dedicated to preserving Portuguese culture, provided UCSB with an endowment to start the Center. His widow, Mécia de Sena, served on the Luso-Brazilian Committee, the body governing the Portuguese Program in the Department, and continued to be called upon to further the work of the Center.

Acquisition information:
Transferred by Center Director Dr. Élide Valarini Oliver, May 2019.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the collection and physical objects belong to the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at the UCSB Library. All applicable literary rights, including copyright to the collection and physical objects, are protected under Chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code and are retained by the creator and the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns.

All requests to reproduce, quote from, or otherwise reuse collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Research Collections at UCSB at special@library.ucsb.edu. Consent is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at UCSB as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or their assigns for permission to publish where the UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], University of California, Santa Barbara, Center for Portuguese Studies collection, UArch 134. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Location of this collection:
UC Santa Barbara Library
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9010, US
Contact:
(805) 893-3062
special@library.ucsb.edu
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