Epimeteu, ou o Homem que pensava depois: uma «fantasia mitológica» de Jorge de Sena

Pretende-se, neste texto, oferecer uma leitura da peça seniana em um acto, Epimeteu, ou o Homem que Pensava Depois, que, num complexo e original registo trágico-fársico, conjuga, com grande signifi cado dramático e efi cácia teatral, mito e fantasia.

Contributos da tecnologia multimédia e do multissensorial nas artesn performativas Era Uma Vez

O presente projeto de intervenção artística com o nome “Era Uma Vez” tem como objetivo transformar Contos Tradicionais numa Performance interativa, recorrendo à tecnologia multimédia, no sentido de proporcionar ao público visitante uma viagem pelo mundo da fantasia, num ambiente multissensorial. Neste sentido, pretendeu-se implementar um espaço de lazer, de relaxamento e um convite ao mundo da fantasia, fazendo sonhar e maravilhando todos os públicos envolvidos. O local de realização da Performance foi um espaço não convencional, um prédio antigo, atualmente desabituado, na cidade de Viseu. Quanto à Performance pretendeu-se que os intérpretes e todo o espaço envolvente provocasse no público múltiplas sensações. Estas provocações poderiam libertar memórias, não fossem as histórias ou os contos muitas vezes responsáveis por incutir determinados sentimentos, valores morais e princípios ideológicos. O uso das tecnologias multimédia nas artes tem tido um crescimento exponencial. Atualmente são muitas as formas de arte que adotam a multimédia no seu processo criativo, este fator provém da necessidade de criar novas ideias, procurar ser original, tornar o produto mais atrativo. A afirmação de espaços multissensoriais ou MSE (Multi Sensory Environment - ambiente multissensorial) tem sido notável. A exploração desta metodologia de trabalho destina-se para além do desenvolvimento e aprendizagem, o querer proporcionar, bem-estar, prazer, exploração, relaxamento e encontrar equilíbrio. A metodologia aplicada para a criação deste projeto é a Metodologia Projetual de Bruno Munari. Tratando-se de um projeto artístico tem uma organização simples e minimalista que resulta de um esquema cujo a ordem é definida pelo autor do projeto mediante as suas necessidades. A Estreia teve como resultado um balanço muito positivo por parte dos participantes, a adesão e a participação do público interagindo com todo o ambiente criado superou as expectativas.

Wondrous transformations: rereading and rewriting wonder in contemporary anglophone and francophone fairy tales

This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.

“Crescer só… entre muitos” : Autopercepções e emoções em crianças institucionalizadas

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica

To be a woman here is to be invisible: in search of the dispossessed femininity in Middle-earth

In my thesis I examine J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), the fantasy epic written on the basis of a fictional universe created by Tolkien, complete with elves, dwarves and other mystical creatures – with languages, alphabets and grammar created for all. While rich linguistically, Tolkien writes a decidedly male description of his world, often neglecting any acknowledgement of female existence. Tolkien’s monolithic stature amongst other fantasy authors made me conduct a feminist reading of The Lord of the Rings, with an eye for the way female experience is marginalized to the point of omission. Tolkien’s linguistic accomplishments have overshadowed the illogical aspects of his work, namely the omission of genders, societal classes and features of society necessary for the fictional universe to retain its cohesion. This cohesion suffers from a totally male experience in the novel which is willfully blind to these features I listed. My theoretical framework is built on ideas in Toril Moi’s Sex, Gender and the Body (2005) and bell hook’s Feminism is For Everybody (2000). Michel Foucault’s ideas of power and hidden histories assist in performing a close reading of the source text and interpreting the results. My thesis focuses on the transformation that the values associated with the concept of equality have undergone. This is best illustrated in the treatment of the few female characters in the novel – Galadriel, Éowyn and Arwen – as their beauty and existence interferes with the ordering of the male-dominated world.

Profissão docente : laços de pertencimento e identidade

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Educação, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, 2015.

Maladaptive defense mechanisms are associated with decoupling of testosterone from sexual desire in women of reproductive age

O presente artigo contém uma errata, disponível em: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15294145.2015.1108503

Crisis de la masculinidad hegemónica: (re)escrituras finiseculares de la batalla de los sexos en Estados Unidos

The present dissertation explores the concept of masculinity as power, paying special attention to the production and resistance of the rigid narratives of masculinity. Such configuration has prescribed the role of men in society—both at an individual and collective level—placing man at the centre of the patriarchal system and thus conferring upon men superiority over women. Such ideological construction is based on an essentialist view of the world, where biology determines destiny. As Men’s Studies have been advocating since their emergence, the victims of such an inegalitarian system are mainly women, but there are others, such as marginalized groups of men and hegemonic men themselves. Our focus is centered on the so-called crisis of masculinity that North American men went through in the last two decades of the twentieth century, the consequences of which have not yet been completely overcome. While from an essentialist point of view such a crisis is questionable, the political, economic and sociological reality of the Reagan’s Age made visible the downsides and pitfalls of toxic masculinity. In order to face the problems derived from the damaging nature of a construction that constrains men, three broad responses to the problem were taken: pro-feminist, anti-feminist and spiritual. Except for pro-feminists, the main reaction of these groupings consisted of victimizing themselves and of defending their essentialist supremacy—lulled by the fantasy world fostered by the “politics of symbolism” (Dallek, 1999 [1984]) of Reagan’s escapist policies. Opposing this reassuring image of the United States, the Blank Generation addressed the crisis of masculinity from a nihilist perspective. Through the analysis of American Psycho, this dissertation will illustrate the darkest side of the hegemonic model of masculinity...

Do imaginado ao imaginário : magia, improviso e salvação nas narrativas orais tradicionais e nos discursos de formação da Igreja e da religiosidade católica no Brasil

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Departamento de Sociologia, 2016.

"The Emperor of the Moon" (1687) d'Aphra Behn : contribution dramatique au débat scientifique et littéraire sur la pluralité des mondes

International audience

El libro maligno: Aura e Inés

Se explora la figura del lector y la naturaleza envolvente del libro que lo seduce.

Mapping the Liminal Experience of Eastern Europe in Selected American Works, 1965-2002

The purpose of this dissertation is to study literary representations of Eastern Europe in the works of celebrated and less-known American authors, who visited and narrated the region between the mid-1960s and early 2000s. The main critical body focuses on Eastern Europe before 1989 and encompasses three major voices of American literature: John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth. However, in the last chapter I also explore American literary perceptions of the area following the collapse of communism. Importantly, the term “Eastern Europe” as used in this dissertation is charged with significance. I approach it not only as a space on the map or the geopolitical construct which emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, but rather as a conceptual category and a repository of meanings built out of fact and fantasy: specific historical, political and cultural realities interlaced with subjective worldviews, preconceptions, and mental images. The critical framework of this dissertation is twofold. I reach for the concept of liminality to elucidate the indeterminacy and malleability which lies at the heart of the object of study—the idea, image, and experience of Eastern Europe. Bearing in mind the nature of the works under analysis, all of which were inspired by actual visits behind the Iron Curtain, I propose to interpret these transatlantic literary journeys in terms of generative experience, where Eastern Europe is mapped as a liminal space of possibility; a contact zone between cultures and, potentially, the locus of self-discovery and individual transformation. If liminality is the metaphor or a lens that I employ in order to account for the nature of the analyzed works and the complex terrain they map, imagology, whose purpose is to study the processes of constructing selfhood and otherness in literature, provides me with the method and the critical vocabulary for analyzing selected literary representations. The dissertation is divided into six chapters, the last of which serves as coda to the previous discussion. The first two chapters constitute the critical foundation of this work. Then, in chapters 3, 4, and 5 I study American images of Eastern Europe in the works written by John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth, respectively. The last, sixth chapter of this dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first one, I discuss new critical perspectives and avenues of research in the study of Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism. Then, I carry out a joint analysis of four works written after 1989 by Eva Hoffman, Arthur Phillips, John Beckman, and Gary Shteyngart. The dissertation ends with conclusions in which I summarize my findings and reflections, and suggest implications for future research. As this dissertation seeks to demonstrate, Eastern Europe portrayed in the analyzed works oscillates between contradictory representations which are contingent upon a number of factors, most importantly who maps it and in what context. Even though each experience of Eastern Europe is distinct and fueled by the profiles, identities, and interests of the characters and their creators, I have found out that certain patterns of othering are present in all the works. Thus, my research seems to suggest that there is something of a recurrent literary image of Eastern Europe, which goes beyond the context of the Cold War. Accordingly, while this dissertation hopes to be a valid contribution to the study of literary and cultural mappings of Eastern Europe, it also generates new questions regarding the current, post-communist representation of the area and its relationship to the national tropes explored in my work.

Mundos Prohibidos: El Poder en el Discurso Epistolar de Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Juana Borrero

This dissertation analyses, through a theoretical framework and a critical approach, letters of Cuban writers Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and Juana Borrero. While love letters have captured the interest of some scholars, such as Claudio Guillén, Cintio Vitier and Alexander Roselló Selimov, the conflict that the analysis of non-literary texts poses has prevented further research in this field. Therefore, I propose a systematic method of analysis encompassing but not limited to evaluating letters based on their purpose, intent, interpretation, and temporal and spatial composition; analyzing the perspective and function of epistolary entities, and examining the textual signs that distinguish the epistolary forms from the literary forms. With this analytical tool, I examine a selection of letters of Gómez de Avellaneda and demonstrate that the writer displaces her identify from the autobiographic self to the epistolary self, in order to manipulate the perspective of her addressee. Caught between the Neoclassical way of thinking and the Romantic aesthetics, her assertive discourse, also reflected in her epistolary work, contributed to the incursion of women writers into the social and professional life of the nineteen century. Following the same method of investigation, an analysis of letters written by Borrero proves that, by building a world of delusion, hallucination and fantasy the writer brings to prose what first generation of female modernistas had done in poetry. In both cases, my focus is on the strategies that turn these letters into instruments of power, process that transformed the love-letter paradigm and forever renovated the women epistolary genre. This dissertation further explores the possibility of initiating a cycle in the study of personal letters to uncover a forgotten genre, mission that might build a bridge to embrace the new forms of written communication that scholars have already begun to explore in contemporary literature.

Sex-Positive Curricula: An Investigation of the Relationship Between Physical Fitness, Self-Concept and Sexual Functioning

Despite the well-recognized benefits of exercise, Americans are gaining weight in astounding proportions and levels of physical activity are on the decline. The purpose of this study was to investigate a relationship between physical fitness, self-concept and sexual health. There is a dearth of knowledge on this relationship specifically in the context of sex-negative curricula, which is the dominate discourse in the United States. One hundred and thirty-three participants between the ages of 18 - 50 volunteered for fitness testing and data collection. Physical fitness was assessed through body fat, resting metabolic rate, cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility. Self-reported exercise was measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Self-concept was measured by the Six Factor Self-Concept Scale, which presented a total self-concept score and as six individual concepts of self (likability, morality, task accomplishment, giftedness, power and vulnerability). Additionally, sexual function was measured by Derogatis Interview for Sexual Functioning and presented as both an aggregate score and five separate constructs of sexual functioning (fantasy/cognition, arousal, orgasm, behavior/experience, and drive/desire). Questions pertaining to sexual partners, sex education, and demographic information were also included. The results of the General Linear Model indicated significant relationships between physical fitness, self-concept and total sexual functioning. The sexual behavior/experience of men was predicted by body fat percentage and flexibility. In women, behavior/experience was predicted by body fat percentage and arousal was predicted by cardiovascular endurance. Total self-concept was related to muscular endurance. When men were isolated in the analysis, likability was positively related to sexual behavior/experience, and task accomplishment was inversely related to sexual behavior/experience. In women, giftedness was related to cognition/fantasy, arousal, orgasm and total sexual functioning. No relationships were found between physical fitness and the number of sexual partners in men; however, both muscular strength and the power self-concept were significantly related to number of sexual partners in women. As a result of these findings, women may be inclined to exercise to improve arousal and sexual functioning. Furthermore, educators should note the findings of a positive relationship between physical and psychological health and sexual well-being because they provide support for the development and adoption of sex-positive curricula that incorporate potential benefits of sexual activity.

O desejo no feminino

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA – Instituto Universitário para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica