Seminar discusses challenges in producing historical-cultural dictionaries

FGV’s School of Social Sciences (CPDOC) will host the seminar titled “Historical-Biographical Dictionaries: methodological challenges and new technologies”. The event will be held on November 28, at 10 a.m., at CPDOC Casa Acervo’s auditorium (Rua Jornalista Orlando Dantas, 60, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro), discussing the challenges faced by History and Culture dictionaries regarding the dissemination and constant updating of their entries, which relate to events, personalities, concepts and institutions that are relevant to society.

The dean of CPDOC, professor Celso Castro, will host the opening ceremony and the first panel, discussing the origin and development of the Dicionário Histórico-Biográfico Brasileiro [Brazilian Historical-Biographical Dictionary] (DHBB), edited by the School since 1984. Established as a benchmark for publications on Brazilian History, the dictionary features more than 7,000 entries and is available online, free of charge. The debate will also be attended by former and current coordinators of the publication, Israel Beloch (Memória Brasil), Alzira Alves de Abreu (CPCOC), Fernando Lattman-Weltman (UERJ), and Regina Luz (CPDOC).

The second panel will focus on bottlenecks and opportunities for dictionaries in Portuguese. The discussion will be led by historians Tânia Rodrigues (Itaú Cultural), addressing the experience of the Itaú Cultural Encyclopedia; Ana Paula Pires (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), who will speak about the Dictionary on the History of the First Republic and Republicanism in Portugal; and Boris Kossoy (USP), who will present the Brazilian Historical-Photographic Dictionary case. CPDOC researcher, Vivian Fonseca, will host the panel.

The event will end with a panel discussing the impact and use of digital technologies to disseminate and edit historical-biographical dictionaries, whose contents are of great informational relevance. Professor Alexandre Rademaker (FGV’s School of Applied Mathematics (EMAp)) and Rodrigo Padula (Wikimedia Brasil) will participate in the debate. CPDOC researcher, Suemi Higuchi, will mediate the debate.

Go to the website to learn more and register.