PhD in Heritage, Technology and Territory - Autonomous University of Lisbon

Documents

Academic Calendar 2023-2024

Connections

UNESCO-IPT Chair in Humanities and Integrated Cultural Management of the Territory

CICH - Center for Research in Historical Sciences

The PhD in Heritage, Technology and Territory (DPTT) is a research and advanced training program offered by the Autonomous University of Lisbon and the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, with academic collaborations on all continents. DPTT is an innovative training, based on a Distance Learning model, which focuses on the relevance of heritage materialities for the dynamics, resilience and sustainability of human societies. Two dimensions are understood in this process: technology (human materials) and the territory on the one hand, and on the other hand, the construction of cultural landscapes around the patrimonialization of the products of old technologies.

The materialization of behavior is expressed through the techniques that form cultural identities and are perpetuated under the designation of heritage. This heritage, both tangible and intangible, inscribes cultural identities in the territory from which it emerges and in the exchange routes of each society. The understanding of this process led to the reflection of the international academy and entities such as UNESCO to introduce concepts such as the cultural landscape. Consequently, new instruments for the integrated management of territories and the creation of instruments to promote sustainability that change the paradigm are proposed (such as the BRIDGES programme).

Thus, DPTT will create advanced qualification in a research context, articulated with the CGeo and Techn&Art R&D centres, the UNESCO-IPT Chair Humanities and Cultural Management of the Territory and the UAL Chair Luso-Brazilian History and Culture. DPTT will prepare doctoral students for their autonomy, self-learning and development of transversal skills with a focus on teamwork.

Doctoral students will be associated with one of the R&D centers, according to their research. Likewise, they will participate in a wide network of universities and other partner entities such as UNESCO, so that their research, on the one hand, has access to a wide network of researchers, analytical instruments and theoretical references and, on the other hand, fits into a framework wide range of comparative studies.

In the end, the DPTT will train theoretically robust staff with critical skills able to develop research applied to well-defined territorial contexts, which contribute to its integrated development.

SYLLABUS

Specialization in Archaeology, Material Culture and Human Behavior

1st Semester

Scientific Work Methodology
6 ECTS

The UC's general objective is to ensure the cohesion and cooperation of doctoral students within the general framework of the program. The nature of the doctoral program, at the same time, convergent in relation to a common theme (how technical and technological praxis produces materialities in the human dynamics in the territories, which are constituted in time as a structuring heritage of the perception of these territories as cultural landscapes) and plural and multidisciplinary in its potential declensions (essentially based on materialities or the construction of landscapes, in each of the branches, any of which has other declensions). The UC will work on the notion of method as a research organizer and articulator of these two dimensions.

Seminar 1: Analytical instruments in material culture studies
12 ECTS

The general objective of this Seminar is, in articulation with the research interests of doctoral students, to identify the main analytical tools available in the context of material culture studies, in terms of their characterization, their spatial and temporal context, as well as the assessment of its relevance and symbolic and communicational significance.

Seminar 2: Analytical instruments in studies of cultural landscapes
12 ECTS

Multidisciplinary integration seminar, which incorporates components of complementary technical training, when necessary for the pursuit of the thesis projects to be developed. The specific themes of the seminar, in each year, will result from the crossing between the thematic interests of the students and the research lines of the doctorate and associated research centers.

2nd Semester

Seminar 3: Structuring the thesis project
30 ECTS

The purpose of the thesis structuring seminar is to identify the objectives, model structure and rules for writing doctoral theses; The preparation of the thesis project, including a clear definition of the title, sources, methods of analysis, state of the art, bibliography, necessary and available resources, as well as the development schedule until the submission of the thesis; Identification of doctoral research lines in each of the branches.

3rd Semester

Seminar 4: Archeology Project Development in a Territorial Context
20 ECTS

The seminar's main objectives are to support the operationalization of the concepts developed in the initial component of the doctoral program, articulating them with the doctoral project in the context of territorial application. The term territorial, in this context, is understood as being a framework where research can be inserted and which implies interfaces with other communities, which may or may not be extrinsic to the academic environment, according to the nature of the doctoral project. Prepare the articulation of doctoral students' projects with the field of landscape archeology from a multidisciplinary perspective, based on the experience of participating in a concrete project, within the scope of CGEO's lines of research.