A potentially lasting State of Emergency (no known expiry date, to be renewed a few weeks by few weeks, indefinitely) and a Strict Stay-at-Home Lockdown are now instituted in the Province of Ontario. Being a State of Emergency, the measures entail limitless non-Charter policing and surveillance powers, at the mere discretion of the Solicitor General -- or of individual Police Departments and even individual Officer teams (as official spokespeople have let slip). Just as we predicted as early as December 2020. Where we went wrong was in estimating that this would not, in essence, become a permanent state of things. The PSR and Baywolf Press shall for now remain operating on-line for: - all on-line submissions of manuscripts (articles and books) and research material - all on-line processing of submissions and evaluation (peer review) of submitted material - all on-line text-setting, proofing, and development of periodical and book items - all on-line research-connected international communications (now increasingly securitized) - all logistical support for research and research-material-processing activities is now 100% suspended - we apparently may (perhaps) continue printing through our third-party university subcontractor - we apparently may continue (perhaps) to dispatch material by mail, with unclear restrictions - this is as much as we know - the Earth-wide lack of clarity is now patent, a substantive lack of clarity (conceded even by the Toronto Star) -- the situation is abnormal and interpretations vary municipality by municipality; different field agents or enforcers (in essence, fine-collectors and therefore de facto Revenue Agents) at different bureaucracy levels offer different and palpably discretionary answers, different Police Officers say different things, reflecting 'local' or 'individual' and therefore blatantly fluid interpretations; as we simply cannot afford to get raided, 'charged', and hyper-fined on contrived claims of 'reasonable suspicion', we are implementing rules of absolute tactical go-dark; we are strictly limiting all we do to a 'performative' compliance with 'rules' construed in the most provably air-locked fashion possible (even though that may mean little or nothing at all if someone really needs to meet their daily quota of fine slips, for career advancement purposes) All authors and contributors are invited to continue discussing and submitting manuscripts and proposals and to communicate with us on-line, on an ongoing basis, in all research-related and publishing matters. As a matter of fact, the PSR will ramp up its production and research activities, regardless. The PSR website will operate normally. If our ISP service in Ontario happens to be disrupted, we have implemented a 'turn-on-the-dime' active protocol to switch over seamlessly to multiple flow-through ISPs in different countries (no, we are not going to signal which ones) and in explicitly differing regulatory jurisdictions, just to make sure.

We Have Relocated: The PSR Leaves Trent University

As of 5 June 2020, the PSR permanently left Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. Circumstances beyond our control unfortunately made it impossible to continue our operations at Trent. All our activities unfold under the umbrella of the Lusophone Studies Association, currently operating from York University, Toronto, Ontario. Our shipping services continue to run from Peterborough, Ontario, through a Lusophone Studies Assocation Canada Post account. Likewise, the Editorial Office is no longer located at Trent University. The former PSR URL at Trent autoredirects to the present address, our long-standing search-engine-indexed website at http://www.maproom44.com/psr. You can also easily find us through the Lusophone Studies Association - York University. The PSR is currently expanding its publication services and imprint lines, in the expectation of an ultimate global end to the various COVID-19 measures. Obstacles remain, but they do not affect any unfolding projects for the future. We look forward to an ever more intense co-operation with scholars and researchers and academic institutions around the world, as well as to an expanding range of output in different formats. As of now, you can buy all our publications -- barring postal service delivery disruptions -- through the present site (via the Lusophone Studies Association). Shipping remains affected by residual interruptions of service by Canada Post. Please, before you place any order verify online ( https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/our-company/news-and-media/service-alerts.page?refid=800963896471 ) whether Canada Post will physically accept mail for your country (the limitations are by now fairly minimal, but it remains wise to check).

The PSR Dedicates Its Somewhat-(COVID-19)-Delayed Issue

Given the extensive historical and analytical coverage of Portuguese Caribbean communities and their long-run history in PSR vol. 28, no. 2, and given the recent volcanic and geomorpholgical events on the Island of St Vincent (also affecting The Grenadines and with eruptive ash fallout as far the Bahamas and other Caribbean locations), the PSR dedicates the issue in question -- with the permission and agreement of the Issue Guest Editors -- to the rank-and-file people of St Vincent and The Grenadines (the south-east Windward Islands zone of the Lesser Antilles), and to the people of all Caribbean islands affected in various ways by the fallout and longer-term consequences.

The active stage of explosive volcanic eruption on St Vincent began at 8:41 AM on 9 April 2021, for the first time in 40 years, after a Red Alert issued on 8 April. It was preceded by a lingering effusive eruption with the formation of a new lava dome from December 2020 to 22 March 2021. Three staggered explosive eruption stages have been recorded -- 8:41 AM, 2:45 PM and 6:35 PM, 9 April 2021. The largest of the explosions involved, as expected, several directed pyroclastic micro-flows (masses of searing ash, lava, and gases that can move more than 120 miles per hour). Residents as far as Barbados, also in the Lesser Antilles, have been instructed to stay indoors, while St Lucia was warned of harmful air-borne gases. On 10 April 2021, the neogenous (cool-off stage) cap dome within the lake stratovolcano crater of La Soufrière was blown off, sending a further 13 milliion cubic meters of debris, volcanic ejecta and particulates into the atmosphere. Specialists estimate that the eruption is quite similar to the 1902 eruption of La Soufrière, which killed more than 1,680 people (plus the injured and the severely burned) mere hours before the eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique (which killed c. 30,000+). The last larger remnant of St Vincent's indigenous (pre-contact-rooted) Carib culture vanished in the 1902-1903 cataclysm. This eruption affected the same parts of St Vincent that had been struck by explosive seismic activity in 1718 and 1812, natural phenomena spilling over into plans for land-reform profoundly entwined with the subsequent arrival of greater numbers of Portuguese indentured immigrant labourers in the island. The Mount Pelée 1902 eruption in Martinique is historically known to have been criminally mismanaged by the period 'authorities', the ad hoc so-called Science Committee, and all the relevant 'experts', from the Governor all the way down to the Port Authority, Customs -- and the luckless telegraph operator who blinked out within minutes of the last transmission, at 07:52 AM on 8 May 1902, of a local "All Clear". The situation was notably aggravated by a standing Stay in Town Safety Order, enforced through armed road patrols and travel-permits (basically, the equivalent of 'copper' armed-to-the-teeth 'tactical command units'), partly for the sake of the Progressive vs Conservative elections scheduled for 11 May 1902. Needless to say, the 30,000+ victims never got to 'vote' ... and there were no uniformed or mufti 'tactical command units' left alive to 'police' anything whatsoever ... Just vaporized by searing hot lahar superfluid ash and gasses, along with all the relevant so-called regulations, orders, records, and all the mandats and injonction d'interdiction rendue par un juge ... Sic transit plenitudo potestatis. Among those very few who survived and lived long thereafter, poetically enough, was a restless rowdy with an 'attitude', locked up under arrest in a bomb-proof old powder magazine detention cell that saved his life ... His jailers? And the Attorneys and Honorable Judges? Vaporized. In seconds. Candid medieval paintings and illuminated manuscripts tend to convey this as a "Wheel of Fortune" meme. Hodie mihi, cras tibi ... (as Maximilian II of Austria was fond of saying).

By 12 April 2021, at least 16,000 residents of St Vincent were in a process of emergency evacuation. Many if not most homes in critical zones are now without water supply or are supplied through standpipes only. Large swaths of the landscape are blackened by volcanic ash, with roofs of homes covered in a thick layer of dust causing some cave-ins. Crops have been severely damaged, and are being gradually killed by ash fallout across the island (refer e.g. to views from the Belmont Observatory, available at various sites on the Internet). Essential assets in terms of fisheries and small-plot crops are estimated to be at severe risk. Satellite images reveal scenes almost unrecognizable from a few weeks earlier. Volcanologists on site estimate that the explosive phase and its aftermath may continue for several days to weeks. The medium-term consequences, as specialists agree, may stretch over months. The Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados has reduced operations, and at last check Argyle Airport was closed until further notice.

Publishing Program, 2019 - 2020 (COVID Crisis Year) - 2021

For our past and future volumes, please visit our Forthcoming and Recent webpages. A new monographic series of Edited Volumes has been successfully launched (see announcement below -- the initial volumes include, among other, Rivers and Shores: 'Fluviality' and the Occupation of Colonial Amazonia, edited and curated by Rafael Chambouleyron and Luís Costa e Sousa (released very recently). An edited volume of reflections centered on Ceuta and Northern Morocco, 1415-2015, and a volume of studies on Minas Gerais are now available (see below). Titles are being added to the already established PSR Monographs series. Paul Christopher Manuel's new monograph, Voices of the Revolution: Revisiting the Portuguese Revolution of 25 April 1974 -- Interviews and Insights, with interview texts in mirror Portuguese and English versions, was released on 30-31 December 2019, before the full-blown COVID-19 crisis (see below). The roster of publications in progress includes new core translations into English of selected classic Portuguese sources of enduring cultural and research significance (in particular a new critical English translation of the Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis and the first ever English translation of the Manuscrito de Valentim Fernandes, involving a rigorous comparison between the published Portuguese and other versions and the original of the Manuscrito de Valentim Fernandes preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Munich)). The Valentim Fernandes project will be fully ready in 2021: (a) a full digital text of the transcription, newly derived from the manuscript and formatted to reflect the original accurately, (b) a full span of geospatially aware place name concordances (an analytical key), and (c) a digital atlas. The atlas is making good progress, as are the detailed analytical notes to the translation. More about our profle... >>

After a number of discussions between the Board and the hosts at York University over the last few weeks, and taking into account the severity of the situation, ASPHS regretfully has decided to postpone our upcoming April meeting in Toronto. We did not take this action lightly. Having received a number of cancellations already due to coronavirus (COVID-19) concerns, we simply determined that the risks outweighed the gains. Therefore, we will push back our meeting one year and come together in Toronto in April 2021. All registered participants will be able to receive a full refund -- please get in touch with Jodi Campbell at j.campbell@tcu.edu for more information. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Scott Eastman

President, Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies

P.S. Please note that all the accepted papers and panels will be included in the next year's program if the panelists will consider attending the rescheduled conference (Ivana Elbl -- on behalf of the Program Committee).