Twentieth Century Studies

From Philosophy to Method: A Historical Epistemology of the Notion of Individuality in Boasian Anthropology

Alexandru Casian

Through the interdisciplinary lens of historical epistemology, the present work aims to show that individuality is not only a cultural value but also a veritable epistemic operator. The Boasian concept of culture represents much more than a reaction against evolutionism. In his fieldworks, Boas effectively operationalised Herder’s arguments about historicism and cultural particularity. Under these circumstances, their theoretical models require a detailed analysis. Historical epistemology shows how specific conceptual commitments determine the criteria for valid anthropological evidence. By tracing the epistemic use of individuality back to eighteenth-century German historicism, the presents work illustrates significant continuities and discontinuities. From Herder, Boas inherited not only a solid concept of culture but also his epistemic values. The Boasians successfully employed the epistemic notion of individuality to limit imprudent explanatory ambitions while enabling a sustainable historical intelligibility. Individuality shifts from a theoretical construct in Herder's philosophical anthropology to a methodological frame in Boasian anthropology.

Vasco Lourenço: a paradigmatic path of the Coup d’Etat/Revolution of April 25, 1974

João Paulo Avelãs Nunes — 2025-12-28

The aim of this biographical essay is to provide a summary of the role played by today’s Colonel Vasco Lourenço and several other MFA leaders in the set of processes of global political and social transformation that took place in Portugal – and in the non-autonomous territories previously under the tutelage of Lisbon – from 1973 (on the eve of what became the Military Coup/Revolution of April 25, 1974) to 1986, the year of Portugal’s integration into the EEC. It also seeks to analyze both the choices that Vasco Lourenço and many of his MFA comrades sought to make and the options they rejected.
Some information about Vasco Lourenço’s personal, professional, and civic journey is provided to contextualize his involvement in the process that, in 1973, led to the creation of the Captains’ Movement and, later, the coup d’état of April 25, 1974. The main political and ideological currents that emerged within the Armed Forces Movement and the relationships established with other protagonists of the Portuguese revolutionary process (political and union forces, the Church and “Catholic Action,” the Liberation Movements of non-autonomous territories, and diplomatic representations) are analyzed. The implications of the choices made by Vasco Lourenço and other members of the Group of Nine are identified.

Traces and tensions: memory, identity, and power across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Carlos Manuel Faísca — 2025-12-28

The twenty-fifth issue of the journal Twentieth Century Studies marks a significant moment in the publication’s editorial journey, reaffirming its commitment to an interdisciplinary, critical approach that is attentive to the multiple forms of reading, representation, and contestation of the twentieth century.

Industrial Spaces in Transition

Carlos Manuel Faísca — 2025-12-28

This article examines the process of adaptative reuse of the former Delphi factory, owned by the General Motors Group, in Ponte de Sor, situating it within the international principles of industrial heritage conservation. From the history of this manufacturing site, which between 1969 and 2010 significantly shaped the local economy and identity, the study places its adaptation within the broader context of deindustrialisation and present-day policies for the reuse of industrial infrastructures. Using documentary sources, testimonies from former workers, and interviews with political decision-makers, the article assesses the municipal project proposing a business and training centre, as well as a space dedicated to industrial memory and history. This project shows strong alignment with the Nizhny Tagil Charter for the Industrial Heritage, by integrating functional continuity, economic sustainability, and the preservation of identity. However, challenges such as dependence on European funding, the risk of under-occupation, and the proper safeguarding of the site's industrial memory and history may constrain the full realisation of the project, whose impact will ultimately depend on its future implementation.

Between the Lines of Medicine. Letters and the Construction of Luso-Brazilian Eugenics (1920-1930)

Daniel Florence Giesbrecht — 2025-12-28

This study analyzes unpublished correspondence between Renato Kehl, physician graduated from the Rio de Janeiro Medical School, and António Mendes Correia, physician, anthropologist and professor at the University of Porto, contributing originally to the history of medicine in the Atlantic world. Preserved in archives in Brazil and Portugal, the letters are examined as instruments of prestige, functioning as technologies of governing life, forms of scientific consecration, and mediators of transatlantic circulation. Beyond personal records, they reveal strategies of legitimation and disputes over authority within a field marked by colonial asymmetries. The exchange highlights the ambivalence of Luso-Brazilian eugenics, which combined moral counselling with covert exclusionary projects, challenging the historiographical notion of a “Latin mildness” and offering an original contribution to the historiography of medicine.