FROM CONTAGION TO ISOLATION: THE INSISTENT DYSTOPIAN FUTURE IN THE RAG DOLL PLAGUES AND SLEEP DEALER

This essay proposes a discussion on the insistence of a dystopian future and the attempt to get away from it in the novel The Rag Doll Plagues, by Alejandro Morales, and in the movie Sleep Dealer, by Alex Rivera. Through the union of the nationalities that constitute the NAFTA in Morales’s novel, and through the isolation proposed in Rivera’s movie, both works depict a time that faces serious inequality issues. Discussions about science fiction, posthumanism and alternative modernities will be taken into account to analyze the need of thinking about other ways of transgression in order to change our present.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF FHE FUTURE IN THE PRESS DISCOURSE ON THE PRIVATIZATION OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

In the 90s of the 20th century, Brazil has undergone significant changes in its development model, with the withdrawal of the state from economic activities. We consider how the discourse on privatization constitutes a relevant place for observation of recent Brazilian history. In this period, the privatization of state companies, among them telecommunications ones are performed. This article analyzes, based on the theoretical and methodological principles of discourse analysis in the tradition opened by Michel Pecheux, as the press feeds the imagination of future in the discourse on privatization of telecommunications companies. To do so, in order to understand the discursive relationships established in dominant commercial media, we devote our analysis to a corpus of reports and articles extracted from newspapers Folha de S. Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo, which, in general, have taken a position in favor of privatization and changes in the Brazilian development model. The analysis shows that the future benefits are designed for the whole society. Thus, the past is represented negatively, because it would have produced bad effects on society and must therefore be rejected and denied in its historical continuity. In this discursive practice, privatization is introduced as a symbolic milestone period related to modernity and the construction of citizenship prosperity that will fall in the future to be built from this event. Positive meanings are focused in the future, which is directly related to privatization. Thus, the privatist position of the analyzed newspapers try to crystallize the sense of 'privado' as something beneficial and desirable, stabilizing a memory for the discursive event of privatization. This management of historical time, therefore, produces a line of continuity between present and future and a rupture between past and present, whose links are deleted to produce positive meaning for the privatization of the telecommunications.  

REVISTING A CHIMBOTE – TRANSLATION CULTURAL IN ARGUEDAS

José María Arguedas was a privileged peruvian writer for knowing two worlds, two cultures. His book El Zorro de arriba y el Zorro de abajo is one of the most unique and emblematic of Latin American literature. As a cultural mediator, Arguedas chronicles the changes in Chimbote. This microcosm is recognized by the reader through the polyphony of voices and records of their marginal characters. His cultural translation excels revealing their heterogeneity. In the book of Arguedas, as in life, is exposed the impossibility of harmonious coexistence between the two cultures. Through the position of Arguedas and opinions Moreiras, question the Rama theory of transculturation. Through an ethical stance, Arguedas is considered one of the most representative writers of the Andean context and Latin América.

THE DOUBLE AND THE OTHERNESS IN “O CÍRCULO”, BY RUTH LAUS

This article aims to approach the issue of deployment of the self in the short story "O círculo", by Ruth Laus, through the figure of the character Paula and the pursuit of her double. The study of the female character, while literary representation, and related to the duplicity, is associated with issues related to identity and the construction of the self, from an internal scission, allowing therefore to examine the representation of the double, permeated by issues related to otherness, especially regarding to the maintenance of subjectivity in the search of the Other as an extension of the self. The double, in turn, is established as the phenomenon able to settle an active connection with the world, the dialectic condition of the creature, as a way of affirmation from the conception of (re)cognition of the Other as a link between past-present-future in the (re)construction of the unit and establishment of the balance. For the character Paula the element that indicates the division of her personality is the aborted fetus and thenceforth begins the maintenance of the inner Self of the protagonist: find what from her was split.