Cogut Institute for the Humanities
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World

Onésimo Almeida

Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies
Research Interests Philosophy, Intellectual History, History of Science, Modernity

Biography

Onésimo Teotónio Almeida was born in S. Miguel, Azores, in 1946. He graduated from the Portuguese Catholic University, Lisbon, in 1972. He received his MA (1977) and PhD (1980), both in Philosophy, at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, where he has been teaching Portuguese Cultural and Intellectual History since 1975, and as a Full Professor since 1991. From 1992 to 2003 he was Chair of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies. He also teaches a course on Values and Worldviews for the Wayland Collegium, as well as a course for the Center for Early Modern Studies, of which he is a member.

He doubles as a scholar and as an author, having also written short stories, plays, and  crónicas. He is the author and editor of numerous books. The most recent scholarly works are O Século dos Prodígios. A Ciência no Portugal da Expansão, 2018 (Prize Gulbenkian, Portuguese Academy of History, and Prize D. Diniz, 2018, Casa Solar de Mateus, 2019; Mariano Gago Prize, Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores, 2019); A Obsessão da Portugalidade, 2017; Despenteando Parágrafos. Polémicas suaves, 2015; Pessoa, Portugal e o Futuro, 2014; Minima Azorica. O Meu Mundo É Deste Reino, 2014;  O Peso do Hífen, Ensaios sobre a experiência luso-americana, 2010; De Marx a Darwin - A desconfiança das ideologias, 2009 (Prize Seeds of Science for the Social Sciences and Humanities, Ciência Hoje, 2010). A booklength interview with him on his works was published by João M. Brás under the title Utopias em Dói Menor. Conversas transatlânticas com Onésimo, 2012. His most recent books in creative writing are Correntes d'Escritas & Correntes descritas, 2019; Quando os Bobos Uivam, 2013; and Onésimo. Português sem Filtro - uma antologia, 2011. Among the recent books he has edited is Açores, Europa - uma antologia, 2010). A second, emlarged edition of his Açores, Açorianos, Açorianidade was published in 2011.