José Bértolo is a professor in the Department of Portuguese Studies and an Assistant Researcher at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences (NOVA FCSH), Universidade Nova de Lisboa. His main research areas are photography studies, film studies, intermedial studies, and comparative literature. He focuses primarily on the Portuguese and Japanese contexts. He received his PhD in Comparative Studies from the University of Lisbon (2019), within the International Programme in Comparative Studies (FCT-funded PhD programme in partnership with the University of Bologna and KU Leuven).
Between 2023 and 2025, he co-coordinated, with Clara Rowland, the FCT Exploratory Project “Spectralities: Literature and the Arts (Portugal and Brazil)”. He has programmed film series in cultural and academic institutions, curated exhibitions, published articles, and presented papers in Portugal and abroad. Published essay books: Imagens em Fuga: Os Fantasmas de François Truffaut (Documenta, 2016); Sobreimpressões: Leituras de Filmes (Documenta, 2019); Espectros do Cinema: Manoel de Oliveira e João Pedro Rodrigues (Documenta, 2020); Ichi-go Ichi-e: Fotógrafos Portugueses no Japão / Portuguese Photographers in Japan (with Pedro Alfacinha, 2025). Edited volumes: A Escrita do Cinema: Ensaios (with Clara Rowland, 2015, Documenta); Morte e Espectralidade nas Artes e na Literatura (with Fernando Guerreiro, 2019, Húmus); Imitações da Vida: Cinema Clássico Americano (with C. Rowland and F. Guerreiro, 2020, Bookbuilders); Assombrações: A Inscrição do Fantasma (with C. Rowland, 2025, Documenta). Selected edited journal issues: “Photography, Cinema, and the Ghostly”, Journal of Communication and Languages, 53, with Margarida Medeiros, 2020; “Materialities of the Photobook”, Compendium: Journal of Comparative Studies, 8, with David Campany, 2022; “Prosopopoeia Today: Poetics and Politics”, 2i, 4–6, with Amândio Reis, 2022; “Frames of Expression: Photography and Other Art Forms”, Compendium: Journal of Comparative Studies, 8, with José Neves, 2025. Alongside his academic work, he maintains an artistic practice and published in 2024 his first photobook, Moraesu St. (Documenta): https://www.josebertolo.com