The Center for Portuguese Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara was founded with an endowment from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for the purpose of promoting and developing studies about the Portuguese speaking world in California and in the United States of America. The Center sponsors students and activities related to the Portuguese speaking world. The Center also provides support for teaching and degree programs and promotes the study of the literatures, language and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world. The Center has also received support from various institutions, among which the Instituto Camões, the Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, the Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica, the Comissão Nacional para a Comemoração dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, the Fundação Oriente, The União Portuguesa do Estado da Califórnia, the Luso-American Education Foundation, and from individuals and alumni.
The Center encourages donations from foundations and individuals interested in the continuation of its mission to promote the study and dissemination of the Portuguese speaking world in the United States and elsewhere. Portuguese, as aforementioned, is spoken by more than 200 million speakers in the world. It encompasses a diverse and rich corpus of different cultures, literatures, art, cinema, music, architecture and so much more. However, it is considered a “Critical Language” by the United States Government – the only European language designated as such – meaning that Portuguese is understudied in the United States despite playing a key role in global commerce, politics and culture worldwide. It is the mission of the Center for Portuguese Studies to support students invested in learning the skills necessary to bridge this gap and to envision a future where Portuguese plays an important role in their future careers.
The Center for Portuguese Studies at UCSB publishes the Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies, which is an online publication dedicated to the promotion of the literatures and cultures of the Portuguese speaking world. As a peer reviewed journal, it invites the submission of articles about literature, culture and interdisciplinary fields related to the Portuguese speaking world in the following languages: Portuguese, English, French, Italian and Spanish.