Modernitat i barb??rie : a prop??sit de ???Modernidad y Holocausto???, de Zygmunt Bauman

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

Zygmunt Bauman : order, strangerhood and freedom

In the final decades of the 20th century, issues such as identity, Otherness and the role of social and cultural boundaries have been prominent in social theory, sociology and cultural studies. In this context, an analysis of Bauman's work is important because it raises pertinent questions pertaining to the nature of social and cultural boundaries and the nature of boundary construction under modernity. The metaphors of inside and outside and the idea of the boundary are significant in Bauman's critique of modernity's search for a meta-order and in his examination of strangerhood. The article illustrates how this ordering process manifests itself at the individual and societal levels of modernity. Bauman's contention is that modernity's search for a meta-order leads to the construction of boundaries and to exclusionary practices. It is the presence of the Third, for Bauman, which threatens the certainty of order. Different images of the stranger in Bauman's work are identified and the ways in which Bauman's conception of freedom and `community' is intrinsically linked to his work on the ambivalent stranger are demonstrated.

Lugares para amizade na sociedade contemporânea: caminhos educativos a partir da obra de Zygmunt Bauman

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC

Sociedade administrada, indivíduo moderno e educação: uma análise a partir de Zygmunt Bauman

El objetivo de este estudio es discutir el nacimiento del individuo moderno y el contexto de la "sociedad administrada" tomando como referencia los estudios realizados por el sociólogo polaco Zygmunt Bauman. A partir de estos dos puntos, se debate las relaciones con la institución escolar, mientras un dispositivo que pone en práctica la administración de la vida. Por último, se discute sobre el tema de la libertad, concibiéndola como un discurso contradictorio que, al mismo tiempo que toma al individuo como ser libre de determinaciones, lo inserta en nuevas formas de control, como práctica presentes en la sociedad de consumo.

Educação e modos de subjetivação no capitalismo contemporâneo: reflexões a partir de Zygmunt Bauman

The article aims to give a brief reflection about education in the context of consumer society from the contemporary society analyzes performed by polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. It’s highlighted the relationship between the educational institution and the discourse of the market and consumption that building practices that feedback into the practices and values defended by contemporary capitalism. Also it is indicated the effects produced by this relationship on the question of teaching and learning and teacher training. Finally, the article analyzes the dilemmas of the current school in the face of the weakening of human relations and their role in addressing of the problems identified.

A questão da diferença na sociedade contemporânea: reflexões a partir de zygmunt bauman

The objetive of this article is discuss the question of difference and alterity presents in analyzes of contemporary society conducted by the polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. The author observed that human relations are guided by a logic of cost-benefit connected with values of present in the discardability of consumer society. At the same time, it has built ways of eliminating difference through the construction of a politics of expulsion of those considered strangers. For the author, the cities are the materialization of the ambivalence of live with the other people in contemporary times, being the locus of experience approach and retraction to the other expressed by fear of the difference. The result of this process is the impoverishment relational, the feeling of loneliness and an ethical-political crisis seen that could be seen from the primacy of the private/intimate rather than the public dimention/action.

Amizade e a virtualização das relações humanas na sociedade contemporânea: reflexões a partir de Zygmunt Bauman

This article analyzes the human bonds in the context of contemporary society from the work of the polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Taking as starting point the bond of friendship and relational virtualization process motivated by the development of new technologies, it was observed the occurrence in the present world an affective-relational impoverishment. As an alternative to this, it is argued the exercise of building and maintenance of dense bonds that provide an alternative to the bind model of momentary satisfaction, this time marks. Finally, it is indicated that the discussion of friendship necessarily imply on the problematization of contemporary ethics which will provide the foundation for building a new affective political.

Ideologias Contemporâneas: Atores Hegemônicos e Banalização Política - Estudos em Zygmunt Bauman

Estudar a pós-modernidade é sempre tarefa delicada devido aos muitos desdobramentos que um único tema pode tornar possível. Zygmunt Bauman nos abre a possibilidade de analisar o cerne da questão e, partindo dele, encontrar os motivos da crise global da contemporaneidade. Com isso, analisando tanto os atores hegemônicos como a banalização geral, podemos compreender muitos fatores essenciais sobre os meandros da atual crise de consciência e da razão humana, males que atingem diretamente o ser humano em sua identidade cotidiana.

Bauman, strangerhood and attitudes towards immigrants among the Australian population

Through an investigation of the idea of the stranger, this article seeks to blend theory with empirical research. It does this in three ways. First, it engages with a social theory of the stranger articulated in the work of Zygmunt Bauman. Second, it examines data from the Australian Election Study surveys between 1996 and 2007 in order to explore attitudinal changes towards groups of immigrants. The findings from this survey suggests that attitudes towards immigrants in general have fluctuated in Australia, despite the negative effects of economic globalization, the growth in neoliberal economic reforms and terrorist attacks in the West. Third, drawing on Bauman's theory of the stranger we provide an interpretation of these fluctuating attitudes through the idea of the hybrid stranger. Finally, we argue that a more nuanced understanding of these attitudes towards immigrants in Australia is possible when a theory of the stranger is informed by a discussion on the constitution of host self, the influence of the media, the role of government policy, and the impact of class and geography.

Conceito de ética na contemporaneidade segundo Bauman

Pós-graduação em Filosofia - FFC

Conceito de ética na contemporaneidade segundo Bauman

Um dos objetivos do livro é o de verificar até que ponto as influências intelectuais recebidas por Zygmunt Bauman no começo de sua carreira contribuíram para o desenvolvimento de sua teoria sobre a ética e a moral no mundo contemporâneo, eivada de críticas ao pós-modernismo e hoje considerada uma das grandes referências sobre o assunto. Sociólogo e filósofo polonês nascido em 1925 que se notabilizou por seu marxismo de vanguarda (devido ao qual teve de deixar a Universidade de Varsóvia em 1968 e a sua obra foi proibida naquele país), Bauman é também conhecido por sua prodigiosa produção intelectual, nas quais se destacam as análises das ligações entre a modernidade e o holocausto e o consumismo pós-moderno. Para o autor, foram os círculos neomarxistas de Varsóvia que forneceram a Bauman as matrizes críticas que, pouco a pouco, o levariam a desenvolver a ideia de que a perspectiva pós-moderna da ética está introduzindo uma concepção de moralidade bem diversa da ortodoxa, e que se tornou referenciada por elementos exteriores ao sujeito moral - de acordo com o livro, uma verdadeira ironia, nesses tempos de proclamação da autonomia e liberdade do indivíduo, característica também central do ideal iluminista. Assim, hoje, para Bauman, a referência para a ação moral, em tese baseada nas concepções do direito natural racional, ao invés de proclamar e reafirmar a autonomia do indivíduo diante das normas das instituições, nada mais faria do que reforçar a sua dependência de parâmetros externos advindos de outras fontes, impossibilitando a reflexão e a decisão próprias do sujeito moral

Local and global : cultural globalization, consumerism, and children's fiction

According to Zygmunt Bauman in Liquid Modernity (2000), the formerly solid and stable institutions of social life that characterised earlier stages of modernity have become fluid. He sees this as an outcome of the modernist project of progress itself, which in seeking to dismantle oppressive structures failed to reconstruct new roles for society, community and the individual. The un-tethering of social life from tradition in the latter stages of the twentieth century has produced unprecedented freedoms and unparalleled uncertainties, at least in the West. Although Bauman’s elaboration of some of the features and drivers of liquid modernity – increased mobility, rapid communications technologies, individualism – suggests it to be a neologism for globalisation, it is arguably also the context which has allowed this phenomenon to flourish. The qualities of fluidity, leakage, and flow that distinguish uncontained liquids also characterise globalisation, which encompasses a range of global trends and processes no longer confined to, or controlled by, the ‘container’ of the nation or state. The concept of liquid modernity helps to explain the conditions under which globalisation discourses have found a purchase and, by extension, the world in which contemporary children’s literature, media, and culture are produced. Perhaps more significantly, it points to the fluid conceptions of self and other that inform the ‘liquid’ worldview of the current generation of consumers of texts for children and young adults. This generation is growing up under the phase of globalisation we describe in this chapter.

The Unable Individual : The Actantial Analyses of Three Chinese Films and Discussion on Their Representations of the Individual’s Position in Contemporary Chinese Society

The thesis studies three contemporary Chinese films, Incense (Xianghuo 2003), Beijing Bicycle (Shiqi sui de danche, 2001), and South of the Clouds (Yun de nanfang, 2004). The aim of the thesis is to find out how these films represent the individual, his relationships with others, and his possibilities in society. The films all portray a male individual setting out to pursue a goal, facing one obstacle after the other in the process, and in the end failing to achieve his goal. The other characters in the films are also primarily either unable or unwilling to help the lead character. In the thesis these features of the films are analysed by applying A.J. Greimas’s structuralist semiotic theory about the actantial structure of discourses. The questions about the individual’s position are answered by defining which instances in the films actually represent the actantial positions of the sender, receiver, subject, object, helper and opponent. The results of the actantial analyses of the three films are further discussed in the light of theories regarding individualization. The focus is on the theories of Ulrich Beck, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim and Zygmunt Bauman, who see a development towards individualization in societies following the disintegration of traditional social structures. For the most part, these theories do seem to be applicable to the films’ representations of the individual’s position, especially regarding the increased responsibility of the individual. For example, the position of the family is represented as either insignificant or negative in all of the films, which fits with the description of the individualized society, contradicting the idea of traditional Chinese society. On the other hand, the identities and goals of the characters in the films are not represented as fragmented in the way the theories would suggest.

The fourfold serial killer in Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho

Patrick Bateman, o protagonista narrador do romance American Psycho (1991), de Bret Easton Ellis, confunde por ser rico, bonito e educado e, ao mesmo tempo, torturador, assassino e canibal. Mas esta personalidade antagônica não o torna singular. O que o particulariza são as quatro faces que ele apresenta ao longo de sua narrativa: (1) ele consome mercadorias e humanos, (2) compete para ter reconhecimento, (3) provoca horror por suas ações, e (4) não é um narrador confiável. Sendo um yuppie (termo popular usado nos Estados Unidos na década de 1980 para denominar jovens e bem sucedidos profissionais urbanos), Bateman é materialista e hedonista. Ele está imerso em uma sociedade de consumo, fato que o impossibilita de perceber diferenças entre produtos e pessoas. Sendo um narcisista, ele se torna um competidor em busca de admiração. No entanto, Bateman também é um serial killer e suas descrições detalhadas de torturas e assassinatos horrorizam. Por fim, nós leitores duvidamos de sua narrativa ao notarmos inconsistências e ambiguidades. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) afirma que uma sociedade extremamente capitalista transforma tudo que nela existe em algo consumível. Christopher Lasch (1991) afirma que o lendário Narciso deu lugar a um novo, controverso, dependente e menos confiante. A maioria das vítimas de Bateman são membros de grupos socialmente marginalizados, como mendigos, homossexuais, imigrantes e prostitutas, o que o torna uma identidade predatória, segundo Arjun Appadurai (2006). A voz autodiegética e a narrativa incongruente do protagonista, contudo, impedem que confiemos em suas palavras. Estas são as quatro faces que pretendo apresentar deste serial killer

Rorty's Elective Affinities. The New Pragmatism and Postmodern Thought

The present book is devoted to "European connections of Richard Rorty's neopragmatism". The theme, chosen carefully and intentionally, is supposed to show the motivation behind the writing of the present work, as well as to show its intended extent. Let us consider briefly the first three parts of the theme, to enlighten a little our intentions. "European" is perhaps the most important description for it was precisely that thread that was most important to me, being the only context seriously taken into account, as I assumed right from the start that I would not be writing about rather more widely unknown to me - and much less fascinating (even to Rorty, the hero of the story) from my own, traditional, Continental philosophical perspective - American analytic philosophy. So accordingly I have almost totally skipped "American" connections (to use the distinction I need here) of Rorty's philosophy, that is to say, firstly, a years-long work within analytic philosophy, secondly struggles with it on its own grounds, and finally attempts to use classical American, mainly Deweyan, pragmatism for his own needs and numerous polemics associated with it - the questions that are far away from my interests and that arise limited interest among reading and writing philosophical audience in Poland, and perhaps also among Continental philosophers. It did not seem possible to me to write a book on Rorty in his American connections for they are insufficiently known to me, demanding knowledge of both post-war American analytic philosophy as well as pragmatism of its father-founders. I could see, setting to work on Richard Rorty, that a book on his American connections (leaving aside the issue that it would not be a philosophical problem but rather, let us say, the one of writing a monograph) written by a Polish philosopher in Poland and then in the USA was not a stimulating intellectual challenge but rather a thankless working task. Besides, having spent much time on Rorty's philosophy, writing extensively about him and translating his works, I already knew that the "Continental" context was extremely important to his neopragmatism, and that thinking about it could be relatively prolific (as opposed to the context potentially given by American philosophy).