Cultural identity in landscape architecture, renovation of Managua's lakeside

This thesis examines a design approach in landscape architecture in which cultural and historical values are reinterpreted in a contemporary urban environment. The site of this project is located in Managua's lakeside area, which was destroyed by hurricane Mitch in 1998. The lakeside area has been an attraction to Managua's residents because of its beautiful views and fresh breezes. The majority of Nicaragua's population is of indigenous descent; however, Managua's urban environment is predominantly of European influence. The pre-Columbian heritage of Nicaraguans is hidden in their cultural expressions, such as the names of places and religious rituals. This project provides a new lakeside area for Managua in which cultural identity in landscape architecture is represented in the use of the site and in a rescue of Managua's residents' pride in their pre-Columbian heritage. The lakeside renovation was planned using pre-Columbian design methodology and vocabulary to create a functional and environmentally sens~velandscape.

Gender differences in right ventricular function in patients with non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy

The aim of this study is to evaluate sex-related differences in right ventricular (RV) function, assessed with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, in patients with stable non-ischaemic dilated cardiomyopathy. Mean age was 60.9 ± 12.2 years. Men presented higher levels of haemoglobin and white blood cell counts than women, and performed better in cardiopulmonary stress testing. A total of 24 patients (12 women) presented severe left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction, 32 (13 female) moderate and 15 (8 women) mild LV systolic dysfunction. In the group with severe LV systolic dysfunction, average right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) was normal in women (52 ± 4 %), whereas it was reduced in men (39 ± 3 %) p = 0.035. Only one woman (8 %) had severe RV systolic dysfunction (RVEF < 35 %) compared with 6 men (50 %) p < 0.001. In patients with moderate and mild LV dysfunction , the mean RVEF was normal in both men and women. In the 14 healthy volunteers, the lowest value of RVEF was 48 % and mean RVEF was normal in women (56 ± 2 %) and in men (51 ±  1 %), p = 0.08. In patients with dilated cardiomyopathy, RV systolic dysfunction is found mainly in male patients with severe LV systolic dysfunction.

GERMAN VS BRAZILIANS IN NO TEMPO DAS TANGERINAS: THE IDENTITY IN QUESTION

O presente trabalho visa analisar a constituição da identidade e diferença no contexto da representação da imigração alemã em Santa Catarina no romance No tempo das tangerinas (1983), de Urda A. Klueger. O trabalho apresenta, inicialmente, alguns apontamentos teóricos sobre o assunto em questão, com base, principalmente, no pensamento de pesquisadores dos Estudos Culturais: Tomaz Tadeu da Silva, Kathryn Woodward e Stuart Hall. Segue-se a análise do romance, na qual se evidencia como, no contexto de uma comunidade de imigrantes alemães, as diferenças se constituem tanto através da comparação entre indivíduos pertencentes à própria comunidade imigrante, como com respeito aos não alemães com quem estes entram em contato. Diferenças existem, e são necessárias para a constituição identitária dos sujeitos; ressalta-se a capacidade de lidar com essas diferenças e as relações de poder que instauram e motivam a hierarquização entre um indivíduo ou comunidade e seus outros.

AMBIVALENCES IDENTITY IN THE BROTHERS, MILTON HATOUM

This article presents a reading of the novel The Brothers, by Milton Hatoum, focused on the narrator’s condition and his identity implications. Nael, the protagonist narrator, grew blended to a family of his own and random at the same time, without knowing his space amongst the group. The uncertainty of his origins have shaped a floating identity between the position of the son/grandson and the position of the employee aggregated to the group. The ambivalences of this identity are narrated searching for answers, the stabilization of Nael’s identity space. To this end, the main instrument is the memory, the only mean to resignify the past and fulfill the lack of wholeness which accompanies Nael: the wholeness is achieved with the agitation of the past, the memories and especially, the silences and the family forgetfulness. The reflections about the possible identity positions of the narrator find support in the theoretical concepts of memory and identity from a sociological and anthropological perspective. Key words: memory; identity; The Brothers.

Employment discrimination against transgender people and self-esteem.

The evocation of gender identity in company anti-discrimination policies is still very rare. This observation is also true forscientific studies. Very few researches have focused exclusively on transgender employees. Transgender are neither sick nor lesscompetent, and yet, the feeling of being strongly discriminated is shared by many transgender people. Such discrimination and thetype of causal attribution do not remain without any effect on the well-being of the concerned individuals. According to Crocker &Quinn (1998), the attribution of the discrimination to the existing prejudices may be a way to protect one-self from the negativeimpact on self-esteem. In this theoretical scope, the "rejection-identification" model (Branscombe, Schmitt & Harvey, 1999) has beenhighly mobilized. It emphasizes the importance of ingroup identification in the causal relationship between perceived discriminationsituation and well-being. Previous studies which did test this model show that the identification to a certain group can counteract thenegative effects on well-being. Following this theoretical frame, the presented study examines the impact of different types of causalattributions on self-esteem: internal causes (e.g. lack of skills), external causes (e.g. economic crisis), and gender identity relatedissues. For that purpose, an online survey has been created and fulfilled by 110 transgender people. Different scales were used to testthe model: the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, a causal attribution scale, the perceived discrimination of the transgender population inthe workplace scale and a group identification scale. The results show that transgender people feel still highly stigmatized today andattribute, significantly, the causes of their situation to the prejudices they are victim of. Also, in accordance with the “rejectionidentification”model, three links are observed: (1) a negative link between perceived discrimination and self-esteem; (2) a positivelink between perceived discrimination and ingroup identification; and (3) a positive link between ingroup identification and selfesteem.This situation reflects a lack in diversity considerations. Nevertheless, the attribution made to group stigmatization seems toplay a protective role towards transgender people self-esteem.

Learning to be Boys: Reading the Lessons of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost and Marston’s What You Will

This essay focuses on the lessons of Love’s Labour’s Lost’s pageboy-schoolboy-boy actor, Moth, to examine the production of boyhood in early modern culture. It reads Shakespeare’s boy character alongside John Marston’s schoolboy, Holofernes Pippo, in What You Will to investigate the ways in which school lessons might be deployed to produce aged and gendered identities that complicate traditional understandings of early modern masculinity. Reading the comic staging of lessons in these plays, it will suggest that while the educational system aimed to produce gendered subjects, early modern masculine identities exist as a range of categories on a developmental scale. It will propose that although Moth and Pippo comically expose the limits of many pedagogical methods to produce ‘men’, they demonstrate the ways in which these characters learn to be boys. Finally, it will consider the extent to which this production of early modern age and gender identity in the plays is paralleled by the historical boy actors performing these roles.

"Y aquí que todo se vuelve pasión": género, sexualidad y acción colectiva en Bogotá

La sigla LGBT se puede comprender como una articulación de elementos discursivos sobre el género y la sexualidad. En Colombia, dicha categoría se ha desarrollado en buena medida de parte de los movimientos sociales. El objetivo central del trabajo de grado es analizar algunos significados sobre el género y la sexualidad que se articulan bajo dicho significante, reconociendo que no son unívocos y que a un mismo significante se le pueden atribuir significados que pueden llegar a ser incluso contradictorios. Para esto, analicé cómo a partir de algunas formas de acción colectiva se han articulado distintos entendimientos del género y la sexualidad como campos de subjetivación. El primer capítulo consiste en un repaso histórico por algunos movimientos sociales de género y sexualidad en Colombia, valiéndome de fuentes secundarias. La segunda y la tercera presentan relatos individuales y grupales de dos organizaciones en Bogotá: el Colectivo León Zuleta y la Colectiva Lobas Furiosas. A partir de entrevistas semi-estructuradas con integrantes de cada colectivo, examiné cómo algunos de los significados construidos colectivamente sobre el género y la sexualidad de acercan a algunos significados articulados bajo la categoría LGBT, pero cómo otros también se alejan, tensionan o cuestionan.

Sou dessas mulheres que só dizem sim : As mulheres descritas na poesia de Chico Buarque de Holanda

This dissertation approaches the question of gender as a vehicle of identity in contemporary discourse. It attempts to (de)construct the hegemonic masculine discourse, breaking with the binarism masculine/feminine and uses premises of the queer theory, which proposes post-modern literary discourses in relation to the notion of gender identity. In this context, we focus the discourses present in Chico Buarque s songs taken as feminine representations they contrast with songs of former songwriters trying to understand the break of the dichotomy masculine/feminine

A busca do ser e da arte em O Cavaleiro Inexistente de Ítalo Calvino

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Policing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people : a gap in the research literature

This article argues for exploring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young people’s experiences with police. While research examines how factors such as indigeneity influence young peoples’ experiences with police, how sexuality and/or gender identity mediates these relationships remains largely unexplored. Key bodies of research suggest a need to explore this area further, including: literature documenting links between homophobic violence against LGBT young people and outcomes such as homelessness that fall within the gambit of policing work; research showing reluctance of LGBT communities to report crime to police; international research documenting homophobic police attitudes and Australian research demonstrating arguably homophobic court outcomes; and research outlining increasing police support of LGBT communities. Drawing on these bodies of literature, this article argues that LGBT young people experience policing warrants further research.

Teen-age identity construction in Stephen King: A gendered view

280 p.

Drawing in the margins : identity and subjectivity in contemporary autobiographical comics

Mon projet de thèse démontre comment le genre de la bande dessinée peut être mobilisé de façon à déstabiliser les idéologies identitaires dominantes dans un contexte autobiographique. À partir de théories contemporaines de récits de vie et de leurs emphase sur la construction du sujet au travers du processus autobiographique, j’explore les façons par lesquelles les propriétés formelles de la bande dessinée permettent aux artistes féminines et minoritaires d’affirmer leurs subjectivités et de s’opposer aux idéaux hégémoniques reliés à la représentation du genre, du traumatisme, de la sexualité, de l’ethnicité, et du handicap, en s’auto-incarnant à même la page de bande dessinée. Par une analyse visuelle formelle, ma thèse prouve que les esthétiques hyper-personnelles du dessin à la main découlant d’une forme ancrée dans l’instabilité générique et le (re)mixage continu des codes verbaux et visuels permettent aux artistes de déstabiliser les régimes de représentation conventionnels dans une danse complexe d’appropriation et de resignification qui demeure toujours ouverte à la création de nouveaux sens. Suite à l’introduction, mon second chapitre explique la résistance de Julie Doucet par rapport aux plaisirs visuels découlant de la contemplation des femmes dans la bande dessinée par son utilisation du concept originairement misogyne de la matérialité féminine grotesque comme principe génératif à partir duquel elle articule une critique de la forme et du contenu des représentations normatives et restrictives du corps féminin. Le troisième chapitre considère la capacité de la bande dessinée à représenter le traumatisme, et se penche sur les efforts de Phoebe Gloeckner visant à faire face aux abus sexuels de son enfance par l’entremise d’un retour récursif sur des souvenirs visuels fondamentaux. Le chapitre suivant maintient que la nature sérielle de la bande dessinée, sa multimodalité et son association à la culture zine, fournissent à Ariel Schrag les outils nécessaires pour expérimenter sur les codes visuels et verbaux de façon à décrire et à affirmer le sens identitaire en flux de l’adolescent queer dans sa quadrilogie expérimentale Künstlerroman. Le cinquième chapitre suggère que l’artiste de provenance Libanaise Toufic El Rassi utilise la forme visuelle pour dénoncer les mécanismes générateurs de préjugés anti-Arabes, et qu’il affirme son identité grâce au pouvoir de rhétorique temporaire que lui procure l’incarnation d’un stéréotype connu. Mon dernier chapitre démontre comment Al Davison emploie la bande dessinée pour mettre en scène des rencontres d’observations dynamiques avec le spectateur implicite pouvant potentiellement aider l’auteur à éviter le regard objectivant généralement associé à la perception du handicap.

Gender und Genre in melodramatischen Literaturverfilmungen der Gegenwart - Far From Heaven, The Hours, A Single Man

Die Dissertation Gender und Genre in melodramatischen Literaturverfilmungen der Gegenwart untersucht das Medium Film anhand von Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven (2002), Stephen Daldrys The Hours (2002) und Tom Fords A Single Man (2009) als Quelle des Wissens über gesellschaftlich-normierte Geschlechterrollen und sozialkonstruierte Genderkonzepte. Die Arbeit versteht sich als eine nachhaltige Schnittstellenforschung zwischen Gender-, Literatur-, Film- und Medienwissenschaften und zeigt die Öffnung der Germanistik für den medial geprägten Kulturwandel, welcher den deutschen bzw. den deutschsprachigen Kulturraum betrifft. Gender und Geschlecht destabilisieren die Gesellschaft und die „heterosexuelle Matrix“ durch das individuelle Suchen, Finden, Konstruieren und Anerkennen einer eigenen, individuellen Genderidentität. Dieser Prozess kann unter Zuhilfenahme des Erzählens von Geschlecht im Film verdeutlicht werden, denn die audiovisuelle Fiktion modelliert Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen und das Wirklichkeitsverständnis der Rezipienten. Wobei offen bleibt, ob die Fiktion die Realität oder die Realität die Fiktion imitiert. Denn es gibt nicht nur eine Wahrheit, sondern mehrere, vielleicht unzählige Bedeutungszuschreibungen. Die drei paradigmatischen Literaturverfilmungen wurden jeweils in Bezug zu ihren Literaturvorlagen von Virginia Woolf, Michael Cunningham und Christopher Isherwood gesetzt. Sie können als Beispiele für ein wissendes, postmodernes Pastiche des Themen-Clusters Diskriminierung/Homophobie/Homosexualität/„Rasse“ gelten. Alle drei Filme verhandeln durch gemeinsame, melodramatische Motive (Spiegel, Telefon, Krieg, Familie) die Darstellbarkeit von Emotionen, Begehren, Sehnsüchten, Einsamkeit und dem Verlust der Liebe. Durch Verbindungslinien zu den Melodramen von Douglas Sirk und mittels den Theorien von u.a. Judith Butler, Stanley Cavell, Carolin Emcke, Thomas Elsaesser, Sigmund Freud, Hermann Kappelhoff und Laura Mulvey wurde das Begriffspaar Genre und Gender her-ausgestellt und im zeitgenössischen Geschlechter-Diskurs verortet. Das im Verlauf der Arbeit erarbeitete Wissen zu Gender, Sexualität, Körper und Geschlecht wurde als ein Gender-Genre-Hybrid verstanden und im Genre des queeren bzw. homosexuellen Melodrams (gay melodrama) neu verortet. Die drei Filme sind als ein Wiederbelebungsversuch bzw. ein Erweiterungsversuch des melodramatischen Genres unter dem Genderaspekt anzusehen. Die Analyse und Dekonstruktion feststehender Begriffe im Kontext der Gender- und Gay Studies und dem Queer Cinema lösen produktive Krisen und damit emanzipierte Verfahren aus. Diese müssen immer wieder neu beschrieben werden, damit sie wahrgenommen und verstanden werden. Daher sind die drei melodramatischen Literaturverfilmungen ein fiktionales Dokumentationsmodell gesellschaftlicher Konflikte, welches anhand individueller Schicksale verdeutlicht wird.

Transnationalism and Identity: the Concept of Community in Ghanaian Literature and Contemporary Ghanaian Culture

In my thesis, I use anthropology, literature, and adinkra, an indigenous art, to study Ghanaian concepts of community from an interactive standpoint. While each of these disciplines has individually been used to study the concept of community, the three have not previously been discussed in relation to one another. I explore the major findings of each field—mainly that in anthropology, transnational informants find communities upheld; in literature, transnational characters find the opposite; and in adinkra, there are elements of both continuity and dissolution—to discuss Ghanaian constructs of community in the transnational world. Throughout time, there have always been transnational individuals and concepts, but as globalization continues, transnationalism has become an ever-more vital topic, and combined with the common anthropological discussion of tradition and modernity, its influence on developing countries, like Ghana, is significant. Therefore, in my thesis, I explore how differing conceptions of community present themselves in each discipline, and how those divergences create a new understanding of place and identity.