Arte, prazer e bisturi: construção corporal através da body modification

In view of a field research carried out by a team connected to the universe of body modification, it is possible to discern some uses and meanings linked to these forms of body interventions. Body modification or body change is part of the circuit of piercings and tattoos, although they are socially less thinned and more extreme, like scarifications, subcutaneous implants, bifurcated tongues, surfaces and body suspensions. The aim of this paper is to cast an anthropological glance on these practices, joining at the same context all the subjects involved with these techniques, placing them inside the same relational focus and capturing their journeys and trajectories. The discussions are concentrated on the notion of body building and urban life style. Ideas as personal distinctness and prestige imitation are also present in this universe, as well as matters attached to genre, pleasure, art, and to the so-called alternative circuit . This way, the ethnography so far presented here, reveals the complex and contemporaneous character of these practices of body markings in which the body appears as the central element in the experiences of the subjects of this study

Entre fronteiras: a escrita imigrante de Julia Alvarez em How the García girls lost their Accents

This master s thesis aims at investigating the way in which diasporic subjects in the novel How the García Girls Lost their Accents (1992) cope with the clash of two cultures the Caribbean one, from the Dominican Republic, and the North-American one, from the U.S., as well as the implications of such negotiations in the lives of immigrants, once it apparently depicts the plight of those who are torn between mother-lands and mother-tongues (IYER, 1993, 46). At the same time, the implications of such negotiations in the lives of immigrants are relevant issues in the writing of Julia Alvarez. For this, there is the analysis of the uses of family memories as one of the main strategies immigrant writers possess to recall their identities. Moreover, this thesis will also consider the language issue for the construction of the immigrant identity insofar as bilingualism is a key factor in the negotiation the García girls must effect between their Caribbean and their American halves in order to understand where they stand in the contemporary world. In order to build a theoretical framework that supports this master s thesis, we list the works of Homi K. Bhabha (1990, 1996, 2003, 2005), Stuart Hall (2001, 2003), Julia Kristeva (1994), Salman Rushdie (1990, 1994), Sonia Torres (2001, 2003) among other contributions that were crucial to the completion of this academic research