Enrich your curriculum by participating in research projects or curricular units that will give you another perspective and skills. Enrollment for the 2nd semester Curricular Units can be done at Inforestudante. All course selections are subject ultimately to approval by the course coordinators.

Mapping Philosophy as a Way of Life

This semester, IFILNOVA offers the possibility of integrating 5 BA and PhD students into a research project. The course, guided by researcher Marta Faustino, Prof. António de Castro Caeiro and researchers Luís Aguiar de Sousa and Bartholomew Ryan, will be taught in Portuguese and English. More information about the objectives of the UC and the bibliography here (BA) e here (PhD).

EcoPraxis: Critical Theory and Practices in the Anthropocene Lab

The research seminar aims to integrate doctoral students into a research environment that offers them the opportunity to develop and apply methodological knowledge and to have hands-on contact with research tools such as databases or specialized libraries. By outlining recent developments in contemporary arts, critical theory, and postcolonial and indigenous studies, the course connects these areas of research to political ecology while critiquing these developments and seeking to identify alternatives for the production of knowledge in the present. The innovative component of the course lies in the fact that it is a laboratory rather than a conventional course: Students will be asked to reflect on, elaborate, create, and present their work and hypotheses about our times. Throughout the course, we will seek to formulate hypotheses about future research perspectives, including the future of images and their political implications from gendered, postcolonial, and ecological perspectives. This curriculum unit is in dialogue with several other curriculum units in NOVA’s Social Sciences and Humanities programme and is an interdisciplinary seminar taught in English. The lecturer in charge, researcher Giovanbattista Tusa, has worked on radical politics, cinema, ecocriticism, ontological realism and animal studies. More information about the UC here.

Urban Aesthetics: Philosophy, Art and the City

This introductory course to the aesthetics of the city, open to undergraduate students, will develop themes and problems of the utmost topicality, addressing the key concepts of urban aesthetics as well as some traditional and contemporary issues raised by urban experience and artistic practices in and of the city. Along with this thematic and conceptual approach, the course will provide insights on some historical and influential texts on the experience of the city by Simmel, Benjamin, Lefebvre or Michel de Certeau, to name a few. The relation between philosophy, the arts and the city reached new and meaningful forms in the last century and a half, coinciding with the development of the modern metropolis. This stems from the fact that cities are a stimulating aesthetic subject, in the widest sense of the notion of aesthetics, concerning both the way we sense and perceive and the spatio-temporal structures conditioning our experiences. By focusing on philosophical aesthetics, the course will diverge from an urban planning or design perspective, while paying a particular attention to the place and function of aesthetic reflection in the face of the many social, political and ethical challenges posed by contemporary cities. The course, taught by researchers Nélio Conceição and Nuno Fonseca, will be in English. More information about the UC here.

Introduction to Ethics (through Film)

Decision-making is an essential part of our private and professional life. Decisions often concern morally sensitive matters. In such cases, we tend to turn to relatives, friends, and colleagues and look for their help and advice. We thus make moral decisions based on our moral intuitions. But how can we be sure that what our moral intuitions tell us to do is the right thing to do? How do moral intuitions arise? Are my moral intuitions reliable? This course, open to undergraduate students, aims to provide an answer to these fundamental questions. The course will approach the study of ethics through the aid of specific films and will be taught in English by researcher Paolo Stellino. More information about the UC here.