Portuguese language, literature and history
Dr Odber de Baubeta has published books and articles on medieval Portuguese Literature and Ecclesiastical History (Igreja, Pecado e Sátira Social na Idade Média Portuguesa, Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional/Casa da Moeda, 1997). She has written on selected Portuguese authors (Gil Vicente, Camões, Miguel Torga, Bernardo Santareno), the language of advertising, and the use of fairy tale motifs in advertising and other fictions. She has recently carried out research into Portuguese anthologies (The Anthology in Portugal: A New Approach to the History of Portuguese Literature. The Twentieth Century, 2007) and is now co-ordinating a team of researchers who are exploring different aspects of Portuguese anthologies.
Brazilian literature
Dr Oakley has a long-standing interest in Brazilian poetry and prose, in particular the works of Lima Barreto, on whom he has published numerous articles in British and Brazilian academic journals. In Spring 1998, he published a major study of this author, The Case of Lima Bareto and Realism in the Brazilian "Belle Époque", Lampeter, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998.
Dr Odber de Baubeta has published articles on Jorge Amado, Dias Gomes and Clarice Lispector.
Portuguese translation studies
Members of the Portuguese team have a long-standing commitment to translation, both the theory and the practice, with a special interest in making works of Portuguese literature and history available to a wider reading public
Thus Dr Oakley translated selections from the fifteenth-century chronicles of Fernão Lopes' were made jointly with the late Professor Derek Lomax and published under the title of The English in Portugal, 1376-87, Warminster, Aris and Phillips, 1988.
A new project to translate all of the Crónicas is now being designed by Dr Amélia Hutchinson, Honorary Research Fellow.
Dr Odber de Baubeta has organised a one-day conference, held in the Institute of Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. The title was: From the Portuguese: Translations and Transformations. The speakers, Margaret Jull Costa, Juliet Perkins, Ana de Brito, Tony Lappin, Ann Maclaren, Shirley Clarke and Pat Odber de Baubeta, talked about aspects of translating Gil Vicente, Camões, António José da Silva and Eça de Queiroz.
Dr Odber de Baubeta has herself translated a number of Portuguese short stories into English. She has commissioned a number of translations of Portuguese works into English to be published in the series Edições Gil Vicente, under the auspices of the Cátedra Gil Vicente with the support of the Instituto Camões. The other members of the Editorial Board are Professor Frank Lough (Birmingham), Dr Alexandra Assis Rosa (University of Lisbon) and Dr Margarida Vale de Gato (University of Lisbon).
The Sir Henry Thomas Project: The History of Portuguese Literature in English Translation
This project, originally undertaken in conjunction with Dr Helen Kelsh, has given rise to a series of papers delivered in the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, London, Oxford; Coimbra, Oporto and Lisbon; Ribadeo and Santiago de Compostela (Galicia) and the University of Durban-Westville, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa (by video-conference), and a dozen papers authored by Dr Odber de Baubeta, Dr Kelsh, Dr Carvalho and Dr Sonia Pérez Villanueva. The first monograph of a projected series of three, The History of Portuguese Literature in English Translation. The Medieval Galician Portuguese Lyric and the Theatre of Gil Vicente, is due to be published later this year.