A letra escarlate como romance histórico: uma história de fragilidade humana e tristeza

The objective of this paper is to analyze the work of the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864), The Scarlet Letter (1850), in the light of the contributions of Literature and History of the American people in the context of New England. Accordingly, we highlight aspects that justify the inclusion of the work as a historical novel, especially based on the reading of The Historical Novel (1936-37) written by Georg Lukács. The diversity of voices and social interrelationships that come out of the main characters of the plot of the novel, as well as their contextual buildings, constituted as important traces to understanding the novel as being of historical value. During our study, we found out that it is in the plots of the novels that the characters reflect, at the same time, the specific conditions of their singularities, the general trends of the historical process and the social conditions from which they arise. We also could see that it is in their singularities that lie special tendencies of human beings. Our references to this study came from scholars as Howard (1964), Bakhtin (1998), Eagleton (2006), Todorov (2009), Zabel (1947), Sellers (1985), Cunlife (1986), Candido (1993) and Schwarz (1981)

A História entre Tempos e Contratempos: Fontes Ibiapina e a obscura invenção do Piauí

Dans ce texte, nous prenons avec probleme le départment bresilien de Piauí comme espacialité de la Région « Nordeste », suivant les instants de son insertion politique et discursif dans l'identité régionale, qui s'est donnée entre la fin des années 1950 et débuts des années 1970. Pour ceci, nous proposons une analyse de discours identitaires de Piauí comme la littérature et le folklore produits alors, cherchant à rapporter telles discours avec les pratiques et intérêts politiques qui ont concouru pour la « nordestinization » de Piauí. Parmi ces discours et dans dialogue avec eux, nous prenons centralement l'oeuvre du juge et ecrivain João Nonon de Moura Fontes Ibiapina, emisseur de signes qui apparaît en ce moment. Notre objectif est discuter les images élaborées sur Piauí et son inclusion dans les stéréotypes cristallisés de Nordeste, comme la pauvreté et la nécessité, la vie dans le champs et la prédominance d'une « culture populaire » régionale. Dans une période d'importantes mutations dans la société brésilienne, dans la production culturelle, dans heurtes régionalistes Nordeste et dans les formes de penser et pratiquer les espaces, les intellectuels de Piauí que nous étudions ont essayé de recouvrir de mots et de sens la noirceur et l'incommode silence concernant le Piauí dans la Nation bresilienne, quand le déparment s'intégrait, au moyen de la Région, au Brésil urbain et industrialisé

O sertão virou verso, o verso virou sertão:sertão e sertanejos representados e ressignificados pela Literatura de Cordel (1900-1940)

Backland¹ are not only geographic spaces limited by physically established borders. It is a space composed by events, experiences, behavior, symbology, manners related to how to live and see the world. It is developed from historical processes and layers of discourses that contact each other, compete among themselves, establish agreement, promote consensus which define, resignify and update them over time. The present paper seeks to analyze and discuss the forms in which discourses produced by cordel literature² sold and consumed in popular locations, from backlands to coast cities, during the first four decades of 20th century, represented the environment, habits, moral codes, cultural traits, social types, rites and beliefs, related to northeastern backlands. The paper also aims to investigate the forms on how discourses produced by representations contributed to the constitution of backlands as a space culturally constructed. Poems from the poet and editor João Martins de Athayde will be used to establish dialogues between discourses produced by cordel and others discursive modalities, such as, newspapers, prose literature, painting, texts of memoirists and historiography, about backlands, analyzing how those representations circulated, were consumed and absorbed by backlands and other spaces inhabitants, contacted and agreed with other types of discourse, supporting the establishment of backlands as a space and countryside people as a social type

A história do intemperismo na Província Borborema Oriental, Nordeste do Brasil: implicações paleoclimáticas e tectônicas

Until some years ago, weathering geochronology was primarily based on the K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar dating of supergene minerals. Recent advances in the analysis of supergene goethite by the (U-Th)/He method expanded the number of suitable minerals for such purpose, as well as the time of application for weathering geochronology. This study represents the first systematic approach in Brazil, combining both the 40Ar/39Ar e (U-Th)/He methodologies to improve the knowledge on the weathering and the age of nonfossiliferous sediments. Supported by geologic and geomorphologic correlations, we identified different types of weathering profiles occurring in the interior and coastal areas of northeastern Brazil. These profiles were correlated to main regional geomorphological domains: the Borborema Plateau , the Sertaneja Depression , and the Coastal Cuestas and Plains, and respective planation surfaces, which study is fundamental to understand the landscape evolution of the northern portion of the eastern Borborema Province. The depth and stratigraphic organization of the weathering profiles in each of the geomorphological domains permitted to establish that: (i) the profiles on the highlands that cap the Borborema Surface are deeper (up to 100 m) and can be considered as typical lateritic profiles; (ii) on the lowlands that form the Sertaneja Surface , the weathering profiles are shallow and poorly developed (2-5 m deep); (iii) the profiles along the coastal area are moderately developed (up to 25 m deep), and are characterized by thick saprolites and mottle zones. Aiming to establish the timing of the evolution of northeastern Brazil, we studied 29 weathering profiles representing distinct topographic levels of the Borborema Province, from the highlands to the coast, through the analysis of 248 grains of supergene manganese oxides using laser step-heating 40Ar/39Ar geochronology. Additionally, we applied the (U-Th)/He method in 20 weathering profiles, by dating 171 grains of supergene iron oxides and hydroxides. Geochronological results for 248 grains of manganese oxides analyzed by the 40Ar/39Ar method indicate that the weathering profiles in the study area record the history of weathering from the Oligocene to the Pleistocene, with ages in the order of 31.4 ± 1.0 Ma to 0.8 ± 0.4 Ma. Dating of 171 grains of goethite by the (U-Th)/He method yielded ages ranging from 43.2 ± 4.3 Ma to 0.8 ± 0.1 Ma, suggesting the weathering processes last from the Eocene to the Pleistocene. The precipitation of supergene goethite in this interval confirms the age of the weathering processes identified from the manganese oxides record. 105 goethite grains from 8 different occurrences of the Barreiras Formation were dated by the (U-Th)/He method. Five grains collected from the cement in the Barreiras Formation sandstones, in the Lagoa Salgada and Rio do Fogo coastal cuestas, yielded ages of 17.6 ± 1.8 Ma, 17.3 ± 1.7 Ma, 16.3 ± 1.6 Ma, 16.2 ± 1.6 Ma and 13.6 ± 1.4 Ma. Results of 69 goethite grains from authigenic pisoliths collected in 7 different localities also yielded concordant ages, varying from 17.8 ± 1.8 to 7.5 ± 0.8 Ma. Results obtained from 31 detrital grains are concordant in 3 distinct localities (Lagoa Salgada, Praia da Garças e Ponta Grossa); they vary in the range of 43.2 ± 4.3 to 21.6 ± 2.2 Ma, and indicate that the maximum age for the Barreiras Formation deposition is around 22 Ma. 40Ar/39Ar results for 15 manganese oxides grains associated with the Barreiras Formation weathering profiles, in 3 different localities, vary from 13.1 ± 0.9 to 7.7 ± 0.4 Ma, in the same range of ages obtained by the (U-Th)/He method. The systematic application of the 40Ar/39Ar and (U-Th)/He methods, respectively for manganese oxides and goethites, show that the Barreiras Formation sediments were already deposited since ca. 17 Ma, and that the weathering processes were active until ca. 7 Ma ago. The ages obtained from manganese oxides collected in the Cenozoic basalts (Macau Formation) also reveal a weathering history between 19 and 7 Ma, pointing to hot and humid conditions during most of the Miocene. 40Ar/39Ar ages yielded by manganese oxides associated with the Serra do Martins Formation vary from 14.1 ± 0.4 to 10.5 ± 0.3 Ma. On the other hand, (U-Th)/He ages from iron oxides/hydroxides collected in the Serra do Martins Formation mesas vary from 20.0 ± 2.0 to 5.5 ± 0.6 Ma, indicating that those sediments are older than 20 Ma. 40Ar/39Ar and (U-Th)/He results produced in this study are in agreement with paleoclimatic interpretations based on stable isotopes and clay index values measured in the Atlantic Ocean sediments, validating the use of weathering geochronology to investigate paleoclimatic variations. The direct dating of the Barreiras Formation permitted, for the first time, confident inferences on the age of the brittle deformation recorded by this sedimentary unit in the Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará states. The first event, syn-deposition, occurred during the early Miocene; an younger event, related to the post-depositional deformation of the Barreiras Formation, is associated with tectonic activity from the very early Miocene to the Holocene. In agreement with data from other areas, results obtained in this study reveal that the depth and complexity of the weathering profiles reflect the time of exposition of such areas to the weathering agents close to the surface. However, there is no clear relationship between ages vs. altitude. The depth and the stratigraphic organization of weathering profiles in northeastern Brazil, contrary to the southeastern Brazil pattern, do not vary toward the coast. In our study area, field observations reveal the presence of ancient, thick and complex lateritic profiles preserved in the sedimentary mesas on the Borborema Plateau, as younger, narrow and incipient ones occur in the dissected areas. Geochronological results obtained for these profiles yielded older ages on the high altitudes, and younger ages in the lowlands, suggesting the scarp retreatment is the most reliable model to explain the regional landscape evolution. However, in the coastal lowlands, the relatively older ages obtained indicate that more complexes processes were involved in the modeling of the local relief

Ecologia e história natural de população Hemidactylus agrius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) em área de Caatinga, com avaliação da distribuição das espécies nativas do gênero no nordeste do Brasil

The genus Hemidactylus Oken, 1817 has cosmopolite distribution, with three species occurring in Brazil, two of them native, H. brasilianus and H. agrius, and one exotic, H. mabouia. Considering the studies about ecology of lizards conducted in the Ecological Station of the Seridó, from 2001 to 2011, this study aimed (1) to re-evaluate the occurrence of the species of Hemidactylus in this ESEC; (2) to analyze ecological and biological aspects of the H. agrius population; and (3) to investigate the current and potential distribution of the native species of the genus in northeastern Brazil, analyzing the suitability of ESEC to this taxon. For the first two objectives, a sampling area consisting of five transects of 200 x 20 m, was inspected in alternating daily shifts for three consecutive days, from August 2012 to August 2013. For the latter objective, occurrence points of H. agrius and H. brasilianus from literature and from the database of Herpetological Collections of the UFRN and the UNICAMP were consulted to build predictive maps via the Maximum Entropy algorithm (MaxEnt). In ESEC Seridó, 62 H. agrius individuals were collected (25 females, 18 males and 19 juveniles), and two neonates were obtained from a communal nest incubated in the laboratory. No record was made for the other two species of the genus. Hemidactylus agrius demonstrated to be a nocturnal species specialized in habitats with rocky outcrops; but this species is generalist regarding microhabitat use. In the population studied, females had an average body length greater than males, and showed higher frequencies of caudal autotomy. Regarding diet, H. agrius is a moderately generalist species that consumes arthropods, especially insect larvae, Isoptera and Araneae; and vertebrates, with a case of cannibalism registered in the population. With respect to seasonal differences, only the number of food items ingested differed between seasons. The diet was similar between sexes, but ontogenetic differences were recorded for the total volume and maximum length of the food items. Significant relationships were found between lizard body/head size measurements and the maximum length of prey consumed. Cases of polydactyly and tail bifurcation were recorded in the population, with frequencies of 1.6% and 3.1%, respectively. In relation xv to the occurrence points of the native species, 27 were identified, 14 for H. agrius and 13 for H. brasilianus. The first species presented restricted distribution, while the second showed a wide distribution. In both models generated, the ESEC Seridó area showed medium to high suitability. The results of this study confirm the absence of H. brasilianus and H. mabouia this ESEC, and reveal H. agrius as a dietary opportunist and cannibal species. Further, the results confirm the distribution patterns shown by native species of Hemidactylus, and point ESEC Seridó as an area of probable occurrence for the species of the genus, the establishing of H. brasilianus and H. mabouia are probably limited by biotic factors, a fact yet little understood

Formação docente para a inserção da história e filosofia da ciência no ensino: textos histórico-pedagógicos em discussão

The present dissertation focuses on specific problems in the educational context: challenges in the construction of historical narratives for pedagogical use as well as the difficult task of using them in the classroom. In this context, we seek to work in teacher training for insertion of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) in classroom, and historical narratives become mediation elements to advance the dialogue with this specific audience. This initiative is in line with a recurring concern: one of the main challenges related to the didactic transposition of HFC would be the lack of teacher preparation. Historical contents and Nature of Science are still absent in classrooms. Insecurity and lack of knowledge by teachers are often mentioned as factors that contribute to this situation. It is important, therefore, that teachers (active and in training) take part in discussions concerning the inclusion of HPS in classroom. It is relevant that they know examples of historic-philosophical didactic proposals to address science and contents on science, develop skills to adapt them to their specific contexts and to develop their own proposals. It is believed that these issues are significant to undertake conscious initiatives to insert HPS in classrooms. It is considered that adapting educational proposals to particular educational contexts depends on understanding what these proposals indeed mean and how flexible they can be. In order to address these objectives, we elaborated an educational product, a didactic material focused on teacher training, which was used in an extension course at UFRN. The didactic material discusses the role of HPS in Education, Nature of Science and historiographical issues. It presents a series of dialogical activities on aspects of didactic transposition of HPS, especially those regarding historical narratives. A set of historicpedagogical texts on the History of Vacuum and Atmospheric Pressure is used as a mediation element in discussions. We address potential, possibilities and limitations historical narratives. To carry out the course, it was taken into account methodological concerns of so-called action research. There have been expected changes, modifications and effective actions in the own teacher training material in face of the experience of the researcher-lecturer in interactions with the participants of the course as well as in face of impressions reported by the participants. Developments in this direction have been incorporated into the teacher training material.