The Graduate Program in Arts, Culture and Language of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (PPG-ACL/UFJF) consists of research on methodological, practical and theoretical frameworks connected to Arts and Culture with an interdisciplinary trait as is recommended by the 2016 Art/Music Document. The program comprises of subfields of knowledge in Arts and comprehends artistic languages and culture as conceptually based transversal axes. The program puts together professors and artists who understand research, artistic production and artistic thinking based subsidies from various fields of research in Social and Human Sciences, dialogue between them and cross-linking with technology.

The research lines that make up PPG-ACL and include master’s and doctoral programs are threefold:

1. “Art, Fashion: History and Culture”: studies visual arts and fashion in its reflection and production movements, favoring a theoretical and practical approach based on historical and cultural processes and understandings, in convergence with the field of the Human Sciences. It covers projects whose themes are oriented at artistic processes and historical, sociological critical analyses of art and/or fashion in regional, national and international contexts.
2. “Cinema and Audiovisual”: focuses on theoretical and theoretical-practical productions on cinema and audiovisual with references oriented at cinema narrative, aesthetic, history and historiography. Discusses issues related to copyright and gender aspects, film analysis, narrative structure and its sociocultural implications in interdisciplinary dialogue with other arts and fields of knowledge.
3. “Interarts and Music Studies”: gathering of theoretical and theoretical-practical productions which explore and investigate the relationships between artistic languages, as well as the juxtaposition of two or more language systems, the transposition of one system into another and the relations between texts in two or more systems. It also studies creative musical activity including music and new media; music and other arts; music, science and technology.

Therefore, the interdisciplinarity is connected to a way of conceiving Arts in the world today, considering their intense intertwining with culture, in general. Culture, from this perspective, is an element of hybridization, a principle which transforms artistic processes in contemporaneity.

This hybridization applies notably to the approach of complex themes and problems challenging contemporaneous research. That involves the transfer of methods and technology, two-way exchanges and even the creation of new interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies.

The aim of the Graduate Program in Arts, Culture and Language (PPG-ACL) at Doctoral level is to reinforce the interface between practice and theory, which has already been developed at Masters’ level by PPG-ACL. Another aim is to grant intellectual, cultural and artistic education in a wide and deep manner to professionals and researchers qualified to produce and teach.

The UFJF Arts and Design Institute, which is linked to the PPG-ACL, has contemporaneous creative culture as the backbone of its Pedagogical Project and Curricular Structure of all undergraduate and graduate courses. The studies in the field of Arts and Artistic Processes are supported through this same backbone. It comes forward as a place for thinking and exchanging which actively works to develop creative and investigative skills.

Research Labs

The Arts Institute building consists of 03 blocks, the first 02 open and occupied since 2009, comprising an area of 2,520 m2 and housing the general secretariat of the Institute; the course coordination room; teachers’ rooms with 08 offices for 04 teachers each; a unit management room; the room of the heads of Department; sector library; the Student Union room; a photocopy room; 06 classrooms with capacity for 40 to 70 students each; 03 rooms with tables and chairs with capacity for 45 students each; 02 computer labs equipped with individual computers with a capacity of 35 students each; 06 specific ateliers equipped with specific material for practical classes (carpentry and locksmithery, ceramics and sculpture, drawing and expression techniques, painting, photography and serial techniques, engraving); 05 specific acoustic enclosures for teaching music; security room, locker room, male and female restrooms, teachers’ and staff restrooms and adapted restrooms.

In 2013, construction began on a third block, with 02 floors of 1,500 m2 for 04 classrooms; new and expanded sector library; a computer room available for all students during working hours; 01 cinema and audiovisual studio with professional digital cameras, reflectors, tripods, crane, machinery equipment (crane, trolley, rails), headphones, microphones, audio recorders, computers and peripherals; movie theater; editing room equipped with computers; art Gallery; multipurpose auditorium; 14 specific rooms with soundproofing for teaching music; deposit of musical instruments; new room for the Student Union and 04 bathrooms; canteen; arena theater; parking lot with 250 spaces for vehicles. It is in this third block that the PPG-ACL is currently located.

In addition to the infrastructure offered by the three blocks of the Institute described above, the professors and students of the Program also have 01 room assigned to the activities of the Graduate Secretariat; 01 room for Coordination; 01 exclusive classroom for the disciplines offered by the PPG-ACL and 01 room for writing, editing and secretariat of the Revista NAVA - the PPG-ACL Magazine.

Currently, the institute has 02 computer labs equipped with 35 computers each and free access to the internet (wireless connection). In the new building, a computer center and a new Sector Library have been operating since 2013. The PPG-ACL has 04 computers with free access to the internet in its Secretariat and in the Coordination room. Recently, another 02 complete computers and 01 projector have been acquired to show films, PowerPoint presentations and conduct teleconferences. In the Master's degree classroom, there are 02 computers and 01 smart-TV. In the Revista NAVA room, there is a computer with free access to the internet.

Library Collection

UFJF has 16 libraries managed by the Centro de Difusão do Conhecimento (CDC - Knowledge Diffusion Center): the University Library (which has more than 70 thousand titles) and 15 sector libraries, located in academic and cultural units with specialized collections. The CDC centralizes and coordinates information services and products of the libraries at UFJF. It has the purpose of gathering, organizing and spreading the documentary information that is necessary for the development of teaching, research and extension activities of the University.

The collection includes the fields of Social and Applied Sciences, Human Sciences, Exact and Earth Sciences, Health Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, Linguistics, Literature and Arts. All titles can be searched through the internet in the online catalog. The collection consists of books, leaflets, single publications, reference works, periodicals, audiovisual material and undergraduate theses (Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso - TCC).

There is also a repository of theses and dissertations produced at the University, made available by the UFJF Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD/UFJF), which in turn is integrated into the Digital Theses and Dissertations Library of the Brazilian Institute of Science Information and Technology (BDTD/IBICT). The collection relating to the fields of Linguistics, Languages and Arts, the fields of interest to PPG-ACL, is currently composed of a total of 26,133 titles.

It is also worth mentioning that UFJF libraries have subscriptions to printed magazines and newspapers ("Estado de Minas", "O Estado de S. Paulo", "Folha de S. Paulo", "Caros amigos", "Carta Capital", “Tribuna de Minas", "O Globo", "Veja", "IstoÉ", and "Super Interessante", among others) and several electronic publications of multidisciplinary nature.

The Central Library is open Monday to Friday, from 7am to 10pm and Saturdays from 8am to 12am. It is made up of 19 sectors, among them 01 reading room with 151 seats and 02 rooms for study groups with 11 seats each. The CDC has 80 employees, with staff members trained in the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). The central and sectoral libraries offer as services: orientation to the local research; borrowing of the collection; class trainings and research groups in the Capes journal portal and other scientific bases; standardization of academic documents and compilation of catalogs.

Libraries have wireless network, online digital library, access to the Capes portal of journals and computer centers, where several computers are made available for students and the community. The UFJF also has access to the Capes journal through website's Integrated System of Academic Management (SIGA/UFJF).

Two libraries are of main interest to the PPG-ACL: the Arlindo Daibert Library and the Library at the Murilo Mendes Museum of Art (MAMM/UFJF). The first is in the premises of the Arts and Design Institute and was created in 1994. It was created because of a donation to the Institute of the personal library of a former teacher and plastic artist: Arlindo Daibert. Expanded over the last 22 years, the library offers publications in the areas of visual arts, art history, art criticism, cinema, photography, fashion, design and literature, among others.

The MAMM Library offers approximately 12,000 titles in the field of literature and arts, including rare works, periodicals and reference works.