'Response and Responsibility: Theories of the Implied Reader in Children's Literature Criticism'

Reader Response Theory remains popular within Children's Literature Criticism. It seems to offer a sensible resolution to the question of whether meaning derives from text or reader. Through a close reading of one example of this criticism, I suggest that its dualisms are constantly collapsing into appeals to singular authority. at various stages the text or the reader is wholly responsible for meaning. I further suggest that the criticism bypasses the question of interpretation through claiming knowledge of a child reader whose opinions and reactions can be unproblematically accessed. We do not have to worry about reading texts, because we can, apparently, know the child's response to them with certainty. Anything other than this claim to certainty is taken to be a failure of responsibility, a wallowing in the subjective, obscure and perverse. My intention is to reinstate reading as the responsibility of criticism.

Sloterdijk e o lugar do homem no humanismo pós-metafísico

This work starts from the principle that the word humanism has been currently used to advocate certain behaviors or ways of acting which had been constituted for more than 2500 years, mainly in what refers to the most basic human values, which are clearly validated without any questioning. Humanism has been seen continually as a stone of civility touch. Thus, in 1999, the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk presented a conference in Baviera entitled Rules for the Human Zoo, whose subtitle was clear that it dealt with an answer to Martin Heidegger s text Letter on Humanism, basically showing that civility is necessarily bound to human domestication. So, the present work is split in three chapters. The first one aims to set the cultural and metaphysical bases of humanism. The second one will adopt an approach about what we will call epistolary humanism and its corollaries. Besides, in the third chapter, we will compose theoretical statements to the Heideggerian criticism against humanism and the post humanist contemporary proposition, as well as about the anthropotechnics. We can state that these two elements are considered as anthropological fundamentals of humanism and post humanism, and by understanding their mentioned historical relationship from their biological and ontological assumptions. Therefore, this work, which has been presented here, when it tries to map humanism under the theoretical influence of Sloterdijk, it distinguishes itself precisely by realizing the coherence with which he aims at diagnosing the directions of the contemporary humanism

Revendo o gênero: a representação da mulher no Bildungsroman feminino contemporâneo

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Consciência e crítica da linguagem: Graciliano Ramos / Language awareness and criticism: Graciliano Ramos

Uma leitura atenta da ficção de Graciliano Ramos pode revelar uma forma aguda de refletir o mundo através de uma reflexão anterior sobre a própria linguagem da literatura e da sociedade. É uma leitura desse teor que se pretende mostrar, apoiada na conhecida teoria das funções da linguagem de Jakobson. Num jogo constante entre as funções fática e metalingüística, Graciliano Ramos demonstra visível consciência dos problemas de linguagem, cujo tratamento moderno aponta uma postura bastante crítica (via linguagem) perante o homem e a vida. An attentive of Graciliano Ramos’ fiction reveals a deep form of reflection on the world thorough a previous reflection on the very language of literature and society. Such a reading is here attempted based on Jakobson’s well known theory of language functions. In a constante play between the fatic and the metalinguistic function, Graciliano Ramos demonstrates a clear awareness of the problems of language, whose modern treatment points at a very critical poise (via language) before man and life.

Library Classifications Criticism: Universality, Poststructuralism and Ethics

We study library classifications criticisms from a poststructuralist and pragmatist point of view that rejects the idea of universality in knowledge organization systems. From this perspective, we analize the seminal texts on library classifications criticisms and conclude that the seek of neutrality in some of these texts is not only an impossible goal but also a contradiction in the representation of different cultures. Therefore, we suggest the commitment with the goals and the recognition of bias in library classifications as an important device for achieving a transcultural ethics in knowledge organization and representation.