What's new pussycat? A genealogy of animal celebrity

Animal celebrity is a human creation informing us about our socially constructed natural world. It is relational, expressive of cultural proclivities, political power plays and the quotidian everyday, as well as serious philosophical reflections on the meaning of being human. This article attempts to outline some key contours in the genealogy of animal celebrity, showing how popular culture, including fairground attractions, public relations, Hollywood movies, documentary films, zoo attractions, commercial sport and mediatised moral panics - particularly those accompanying scientific developments such as cloning - help to order, categorise and license aspects of human understanding and feelings. The nature of [animal] charisma and celebrity are explored with assistance from Jumbo the Elephant, Guy the Gorilla, Paul the clairvoyant octopus, Uggie the film star, Nénette the orang-utan and Dolly the sheep. It argues that the issue of what it is to be human lies beneath the celebritised surface or, as Donna Haraway noted, the issue 'of having to face oneself'. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

An investigation of how foreign language departments at American colleges and universities view American Sign Language

Corwin and Wilcox (1985) sent surveys to more than 100 American colleges and universities to determine the policies on the matter of accepting American Sign Language (ASL) as a foreign language. Their results indicated that 81% of those surveyed rejected ASL as a foreign/modern language equivalent. The most frequently stated opposition to ASL was that it lacked a culture. Some of the other objections to ASL were: ASL is not foreign; there is no written form and therefore no original body of literature; it is a derivative of English; and it is indigenous to the United States and hence not foreign. Based on the work of Corwin and Wilcox this study sent surveys to 222 American colleges and universities. Noting an expanding cognizance and social awareness of ASL and deafness (as seen in the increasing number of movies, plays, television programs, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and related news stories), this study sought to find out if ASL was now considered an acceptable foreign language equivalent. The hypothesis of this study was that change has occurred since the 1985 study: that a significant percent of post secondary schools accepting ASL as a foreign/modern language equivalent has increased. The 165 colleges and universities that responded to this author's survey confirmed there has been a significant shift towards the acceptance of ASL. Only 50% of the respondents objected to ASL as a foreign language equivalent, a significant decrease from the 1985 findings. Of those who objected to granting ASL foreign language credit, the reasons were similar to those of the Corwin and Wilcox study, except that the belief in an absence of a Deaf culture dropped from the top reason listed, to the fifth. That ASL is not foreign was listed as the most frequent objection in this study. One important change which may account for increased acceptance of ASL, is that 16 states (compared to 10 in 1985) now have policies stating that ASL is acceptable as a foreign language equivalent. Two-year colleges, in this study, were more likely to accept ASL than were four-year colleges and universities. Neither two- nor four-year colleges and universities are likely to include ASL in their foreign language departments, and most schools that have foreign language entrance requirements are unlikely to accept ASL. In colleges and universities where ASL was already offered in some department within the system, there was a significantly higher likelihood that foreign language credit was given for ASL. Respondents from states with laws governing the inclusion of ASL did not usually know their state had a policy. Most respondents, 84%, indicated their knowledge on the topic of ASL was fair to poor. ^

Desenvolvimento de um sistema de captura de baixo custo destinado a determinação da cinemática humana

The motion capture is a main tool for quantitative motion analyses. Since the XIX century, several motion caption systems have been developed for biomechanics study, animations, games and movies. The biomechanics and kinesiology involves and depends on knowledge from distinct fields, the engineering and health sciences. A precise human motion analysis requires knowledge from both fields. It is necessary then the use of didactics tools and methods for research and teaching for learning aid. The devices for analysis and motion capture currently that are found on the market and on educational institutes presents difficulties for didactical practice, which are the difficulty of transportation, high cost and limited freedom for the user towards the data acquisition. Therefore, the motion analysis is qualitatively performed or is quantitatively performed in highly complex laboratories. Based is these problems, this work presents the development of a motion capture system for didactic use hence a cheap, light, portable and easily used device with a free software. This design includes the selection of the device, the software development for that and tests. The developed system uses the device Kinect, from Microsoft, for its low cost, low weight, portability and easy use, and delivery tree-dimensional data with only one peripheral device. The proposed programs use the hardware to make motion captures, store them, reproduce them, process the motion data and graphically presents the data.

História para "ver" e entender o passado: cinema e livro didático no espaço escolar (2000-2008)

This study aims to diagnose and analyze the use of film in school space, more precisely, in the teaching of history, from the theoretical perspective of the German historian Jörn Rüsen and thus try to observe together with the assumptions of the Didactics of History elements such as public uses that are made for cinema history. In this sense, research propositions movies found in textbooks of history, paths to offer insights about the impacts caused by learning the historical film narrative, this being a learning also occurs in everyday life of students and not just in school space. For both, the textbooks present in Memorial do Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD), approved in the following editions PNLD/2005 and PNLD/2008 were used. To perform this diagnostic use, in addition to books, the Call Notices and Guides Textbook PNLD as a way to understand how to perform the theoretical and methodological discussions and recommendations about the potential of cinematic narrative for history lessons and these possible approaches to the theory of history.

Matizes de cultura de massa na obra de Caio Fernando Abreu

The Brazilian writer, Caio Fernando Abreu, was strongly influenced by a period of changes in social values and perspectives. When he enters the Brazilian literary scene using a writing style free from form and content, he applies in his works all the affliction of the contemporary values. His work embodies all the spirit of a generation that, despite its anxiety for freedom, was still suffocated by the military dictatorship period. Abreu’s narrative also reveals an author with an extreme ability to shift between the erudite and the popular. In his short stories, he develops a performative language mingled by references that turns his text into a sort of Pop Art iconography. Just like Pop Art paintings, full of Coke images, cigarettes, tooth paste and food cans, Abreu’s literary discourse is painted by many symbolical references to modern consumerism, as well as to movies, music and to pop stars. This trace in the writer’s works exerts a great deal of attractiveness on the contemporary reader. In this work, we attempt to analyze this resource in Abreu’s literature under the concepts of cultural studies; thus, we aim at analyzing the various forms of the mass culture expression inside Abreu’s literature, recognizing his allusions as a stylish resource in his writings and highlighting its relevance in the study of the author work. In order to do so, we are based essentially on the reflections of theoreticians: Lipovetsky (1996) and Adorno (2011) who debate the culture and social formation in contemporaneity.

O figurino na narrativa dos filmes de Guel Arraes: O Auto da Compadecida (2000) e O Bem Amado (2010)

This research focuses on the course of Guel Arraes, moviemaker, and picks two movies for analysis: O Auto da Compadecida (2000) and O Bem Amado (2010), as well as their costumes. The focus on the costume is based on Semiology and aims to decode the meanings that stem out of the clothes. Three of the movies characters will have their costumes analyzed based on Roland Barthes’ theory, mainly considering semiology elements (language and speech), (significant and meaning) and (system and syntagma). The influence of the Armorial movement into the movie O Auto da Compadecida and the Kitsch aesthetic in O Bem Amado deserve consideration, aside from the study on costumes function within narrative, supported by Roland Barthes’ structural analysis of the narrative. We sought to highlight the balance between characters’ lines and the image of the costumes in the movies. Adding to the study on how costumes strongly accounts to narrative, we observed characteristic traits of director and scriptwriter Guel Arraes present in his works, which are the northeastern man identity, a presentation of the Northeast and popular comedy. We believe that his choices when creating and his life influences are not separate from one another. Our research was movie-appraisal centered and had a thorough investigation all over language. The main considerations are supported by the following theories: Barthes (2007), Figueirôa and Fechine (2008), Moles (2001), Stuart Hall (2005) and Mikhail Bakhtin (2013).

O cinema como educação do olhar

The knowledge is only possible due to we exist bodily. However, during the educational experience, the epistemic potency of the body is neglected, declining the registers of the intelligibility. The current thesis approaches that problem obliquely: from a body and image philosophy which has revealed other ways of doing those registers in the modernity – understood not as period itself, but as a qualification for the negotiations between the real and the intelligible. The referred ways are explored through Merleau- Ponty’s and Michel Foucault’s works, which offer a spectrum about that new negotiation of the real. In order to approach the studied problem, the visibility and the human body motricity in the cinema are taken as analysis object. The mentioned objects have been analyzed through a corpus of movies of which plots are centered at the formal education and they require from the characters and the spectators engagement into a visual performance. Aiming to approach the object, it is questioned how the Education phenomenon is represented by the cinema; how the body is exposed and how spectators can see it. Analyzing the corpus and articulating Merleau- Ponty’s and Michel Foucault’s theories, it has been possible to state the following thesis: the cinema as an education of the gaze. The general objective of this study is to reveal the educational potency of the filmic experience, which provides a new path of intelligibility for Education. In that sense, the body as a visual operator widens the capacity of understanding the real. The current work is divided in three chapters. The first one brings the methodological approach: it is pointed how the theoretical articulation is properly arranged; it explains the method of using the images as indirect language as part of the reality description; the filmic corpus is presented, as well the criteria for the films choices and for the construction of instrument adopted during the object analysis are described. In the second chapter, it is problematized the incapacity of the western society of formulating the real discursively by debating Merleau-Ponty’s and Foucault’s theoretical contributions about the visual performance displayed on the images while the films are watched and analyzed. In the third chapter, the implications of the education of the gaze provided by the cinema are developed, mainly concerning about the place attributed to the visibility during the formulation of the real. Finally, paths are designed for the construction of another approach for the visibility in Education. Assuming the gaze as an experience of knowledge, this study aims to present other ways of being, seeing, thinking and feeling the world. Therefore, it is a proposal to reset the epistemic and subjectification patterns at the educational context.

Materiais bionanocompósitos a base de argilominerais e hidróxidos duplos lamelares como sistemas de liberação de fármacos

Bionanocomposites systems clay base (montmorillonite and sepiolite), layered double hidroxides and biopolymers (carboxymethylcellulose and zein) were evaluated as topical delivery systems with antibacterial activity and as oral delivery systems. For this study, neomycin, a topical antibiotic, indicated mainly for open wound infections. The drug amoxicillin, an antibiotic indicated mainly for throat infections, were also used in this study. Both antibiotics were used as model drugs. Initially, drugs were incorporated directly into the biopolymer matrix, comprising the combination of carboxymethylcellulos and zein, being conformed as movies and balls and evaluated for their antibacterial activity and controlled release simulating gastrointestinal fluids. Moreover, hybrids materials have been prepared where the neomycin drug was incorporated into the lamellar inorganic solids, such as montmorillonite by ion exchange reaction, and the fibrous type, such as sepiolite by adsorption in aqueous solution. But the drug amoxicillin was incorporated into layered double hydroxides by anion exchange and montmorillonite by cation exchange. The resulting hybrids were in turn combined with the biopolymer matrix yielding bionanocomposites shaped materials such as films were tested for their antibacterial activity, and the shaped materials beads were tested for their release in the gastrointestinal fluids. Through the analysis of various physico-chemical techniques, we observed the interactions between the studied materials, the formation of hybrids materials, obtaining the bionanocomposites materials and material efficiency when applied in controlled release of drugs both topical and use oral mainly influenced by the presence of zein, are promising as topical delivery systems and oral drugs.

Entre Grande Otelo e Sebastião: tramas, representações e memórias

A versão impressa está dividida em volume 1 e 2.

Sequência didática com temas motivadores no ensino de física

This study is based on the design and development of a Didactic sequence in Physics for the first year of high school in a public school, involving structured activities on Astronomy topics, Astronautics and Aeronautics. In addition, it produced a didactic-pedagogic Tutorial for teachers to develop teaching-learning processes in Physics through activities with handmade rockets. These activities have been based on teaching moments of questioning, systematization and contextualization. In this context the understanding and the deepening of concepts and scientific and physical phenomena are related to everyday knowledge, in accordance with the historical-cultural theory, with the Three Pedagogic Moments, dialogicity and Information and Communication Technologies as instruments of triggering actions and motivation, like movies and applications in teaching Astronomy, Physics and Mathematics. The research activities were conduced by adopting a qualitative approach and included reports, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and other notes. The development of the Didactic Sequence enabled a differentiated teaching and learning process, including aspects such as conceptualization, contextualization, flexibility, interdisciplinary and theoreticalexperimental relationship.

Increased Foreign Revenue Shares in the United States Film Industry: 2000 – 2014

The American film industry, which has historically been driven by the domestic market, now receives an increasing proportion of its revenue from abroad (foreign share). To determine the factors influencing this trend, this paper analyzed data from 11 countries of 2,337 American films released during 2000 – 2014. Both film and country attributes were analyzed to determine each attribute’s effect on foreign share, whether its effect size has changed over time and whether each attribute has changed in frequency amongst films released. The results identified six attributes, star actors, sequels, releases in top markets, release time lag, GDP growth and a match in language, that contributed to the increase in foreign share over this period.

BROMANCE : les paradoxes des stratégies homosociales.

Depuis les années 2000, l’apparition du terme Bromance marque la culture populaire américaine. Cette notion est apparue pour définir les amitiés entre hommes au cinéma, à la télévision et sur Internet. Les films de Bromance, caractérisés par une multitude de scènes de déclaration d’amour entre hommes, traduisent bien cette nouvelle façon d’aborder l’amitié au masculin. À travers les définitions de la masculinité dans ces films, l’enjeu de l’hétérosexualité demeure omniprésent. Malgré la fragilisation de certains stéréotypes traditionnels liés au masculin, il n’en demeure pas moins que la notion de «vraie» masculinité persiste et demeure systématiquement liée à l’hétérosexualité des hommes qui partagent cette amitié particulière qu’on appelle Bromance. Dans cette optique, plusieurs stratégies se manifestent pour prouver la masculinité et donc l’hétérosexualité des protagonistes, mais l’une d’entre elles semble être au cœur de ces films. Cette stratégie s’incarne sous la forme d’une compétition entre hommes qui mise sur la capacité à performer un acte conventionnellement associé à l’homosexualité. Sur Internet, des vidéos qui prennent le nom « Gay Chicken » présentent des hommes qui s’embrassent et qui se touchent sans être dérangés ou ébranlés. C’est la capacité à être calme et en contrôle en restant insensible au corps d’un autre homme qui démontrerait le côté inébranlable de son hétérosexualité et donc de sa masculinité. C’est cet esprit du « Gay Chicken » qui se retrouve un peu partout dans l’univers des films de Bromance. Paradoxalement, ces nouveaux «modèles» d’homme doivent pouvoir à la fois incarner une masculinité plus flexible, plus ouverte et sensible, mais doivent également prouver leur virilité. Cette « masculinité contemporaine » brouille les cartes entre ce qui est viril et ce qui ne l’est pas, entre ce qui est féminin et ce qui ne l’est pas et entre ce qui est homosexuel et ce qui ne l’est pas. Les relations homosociales dans le cadre de Bromances présentent alors des opportunités indispensables pour prouver à tous la force de son hétérosexualité. Ce travail de recherche se penchera donc plus précisément sur les paradoxes d’une « masculinité contemporaine » intimement liée à l’orientation hétérosexuelle, par l’entremise de certains films issus de la culture populaire américaine associée à la Bromance. L’objectif est de montrer comment ces films sont des manifestations significatives d’une nouvelle forme d’affirmation identitaire masculine qui passe par des relations homosociales où les tensions et sous-textes homosexuels se multiplient et doivent être réprimés ou invalidés continuellement.

Colonialism, political unconscious and cognitive mapping in the space of the film "Captain Phillips"

The purpose of this article has been made through a Marxist analysis of the US film "Captain Phillips" (PaulGreengrass, 2013), based on a true story. I have found how the evolution of capitalism in the West continuesto consolidate the belief reified in a historical and geographical superiority of the political and socioeconomicwestern models regarding Africa and Asia lowers models. At the same time, through categories like dialecticalmaterialism, criticism of diffusionist theory and application of cognitive mapping to large geopoliticalspaces located in most poor areas of the world, I have realized a remark about currently being articulatingthe political unconscious of working class in rich countries and the poor in poor countries, establishing arelationship between the ideological representation that takes an individual from his historical reality (ona scale that moves from local to global), and how he has developed a mental ability to escape of the responsibilityto make a critical review of what's happening around him in all areas. Finally, through physicalspace captured in the film, I have realized a materialist critique of globalized business process that takesplace through the carriage of goods, outlining spatial and cognitively limits of the mentality of our time, bothamong "winners"as among the "losers", based on the spatial movement of capital.

Is the cinematic newsreel the strongest weapon? The "Luce" newsreel reception during fascism

The Luce newsreel was a fascist-pivotal propaganda instrument. Mussolini thought movies were the strongestweapon; however, the efficiency of cinematographic propaganda on people did not work as well as expected,especially nonfiction. This article intends to value, through oral testimonies, the influence of Lucenewsreel on the Italian population during fascism, the degree of truth of film news, and which of those piecesof news were more repeated, as well as the influence of the Italian and its leader image on the collective mind.

Ludwing II of Baviera and Luchino Visconti: parallel lives? Study about Ludwing II of Baviera

This research presents Ludwig II of Baviera (1845-1886) as a historical figure and the vision of his reign theItalian director Luchino Visconti showed in his movies. This research states in an analytic and scrupulousway the relations between the historical figure, its filmic representation and the director himself. In addition,through an exhaustive research, this paper shows the aesthetics generated by directors like Visconti who reacheda remarkable peak in history of European film. Finally, this paper goes through the making of this film,which went from a transitional film within the Visconti oeuvre to one of his most troublesome and health-riskingprojects causing afterwards Visconti´s death.