Tadeusz Manteuffel
Institute of History
Polish Academy of Sciences
Warsaw/Poland
Agata Błoch, Phd
Assistant Professor
Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History
Polish Academy of Sciences.
Welcome to my website!
With a focus on colonial studies of the Portuguese Empire in the early modern Atlantic world, I specialize in investigating the Imperial Commoners of Brazil and West Africa (1640-1822) from a correspondence network perspective. Additionally, I contribute to the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities project, where I specialize in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Handwritten Text Recognition in the context of historical research.
I hold a PhD in History from the Institute of History of Polish Academy of Sciences (2021), \MA in History of the Portuguese Empire from Nova University of Lisbon (2018), and MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Warsaw (2014).
Beyond my areas of expertise, I have a keen interest in a diverse range of historical subjects, including Digital Humanities, historical network analysis, global history, social history, subalterns and postcolonial theories. I am committed to advancing the field of history through innovative research and collaboration with fellow scholars.
Thank you for visiting my website, and I invite you to explore my work further.
Recent book
“The Free and the Enslaved. Voices of the Subalterns in the History of Portuguese Empire”
Warsaw, 2022, p. 468.
[Portuguese version]
The Free and the Enslaved: Voices of the Subalterns in the History of the Portuguese Empire" is a compelling account of ordinary and extraordinary people who lived on the margins of the Portuguese colonial empire. This book explores the stories of people who once lived in what is now Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and the Atlantic archipelagos of Cape Verde and São Tomé. The book focuses not only on indigenous peoples, but also on Jews, Jewish converts or Muslims fleeing religious persecution, as well as Gypsies, witches, and criminals convicted by the Inquisition and civil courts. The subalternity of these groups depended on several factors, including gender, assimilation, relationship to their master, and position in the network structure.
By highlighting these voices, we can better understand which social groups were actively and intentionally involved in the formation of the Portuguese colonial empire and which were erased from history. This reconstruction of history from the perspective of the most marginalized can help deconstruct the accepted historical narrative.