GESPEDU

GESPEDU

(COMPETE2030-FEDER-00736500; FCT nº 16208)
Project started in September 2025

Gender Equality, the Short Story Genre and Postcolonial Approaches to Literary Education for an Inclusive Society

Although the Portuguese language is one of the ten most spoken languages in the world, its teaching in Portugal relies mainly on national writers, and grants little room to female authorship. Based on the premise that the short story is the literary genre that best enables the dissemination of diversified cultural references and the corresponding plurality of perspectives, this project explores the potential of the genre to foster more inclusive school syllabi, contributing to gender equality by increasing the visibility of female authorship, and naturalizing cultural difference through the compulsory study of authors from other nations that also speak Portuguese, namely, Brazil and several African countries. Furthermore, the practices and knowledge generated by this project can subsequently be adapted and replicated in other national contexts, or in relation to other transnational languages.

Our research is primarily focused on the short story in Portuguese, from countries such as East Timor, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, the archipelagoes of Cape Verde and S. Tomé e Príncipe, Portugal and Brazil. While its primary focus is the Portuguese speaking world, it remains open to comparative perspectives involving other literary traditions, thereby fostering an international dialogue on the contemporary short story.

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