Letteratura per l'infanzia e metafore del Limite. Mentori e infanzie sulla soglia

La presente ricerca di dottorato, attraverso un’indagine multidisciplinare, si pone l’obiettivo di elaborare in chiave pedagogica una riflessione sulla relazione esistente tra la letteratura per l’infanzia, la narrazione, l’esperienza e il limite. La ricerca mira ad analizzare le metafore del limite intese come metafore della caducità, della ferita, della marginalità, della liminalità, della divergenza e dell’alterità. La ricerca si concentra in particolare sulle rappresentazioni metaforiche della relazione educativa tra personaggi mentori e personaggi bambini, colti in attraversamenti e transizioni esistenziali, colti quindi nell’atto di cura della loro natura limitata. L’impianto teorico-interpretativo elaborato è utilizzato per sondare criticamente l’opera di Robert Louis Stevenson e di James Matthew Barrie, autori scelti come rappresentanti emblematici del periodo di soglia a cavallo di secolo, compreso tra il 1880 e il 1914. Attraverso l’applicazione del paradigma indiziario della ricerca storiografica e letteraria, l’indagine raccoglie correlazioni incongrue tra le opere, le biografie e la storia in cui esse si inseriscono, per formulare ipotesi che permettano un’interpretazione delle modificazioni che le rappresentazioni del limite subirono in quel periodo, sul limitare del primo conflitto mondiale.

Will the "fight" ever end? : a critical reading of the metaphors and discourses that construct HIV/AIDS in an African context

In this thesis, I critically examine the discourses that inform how we conceptualise HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa as they are produced in a sample of Canadian news articles, two nonfiction texts - Stephanie Nolen's 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa and Jonathan Morgan and the Bambanani Women's Group's Long Life ... Positive HIV Stories - as well as two literary texts - John Le Carre's popular fiction novel The Constant Gardener and an anthology of stories and poems from Southern Africa titled Nobody Ever Said AIDS, compiled and edited by Nobantu Rasebotsa, Meg Samuelson and Kylie Thomas. Paying particular attention to the role of metaphor in discursive formation, I have found that military metaphors, usually used in conjunction with biomedical discourses, continue to dominate what is said about HIV/AIDS. However, the use of military metaphors to conceptualise HIV/AIDS contributes to stigma and limits the effectiveness of responses to the pandemic. I argue that accessing alternative metaphors and discourses, such as biopsychosocial discourse, can lead to a more layered - and more beneficial - conceptualisation of HIV/AIDS, encouraging a more active response to the pandemic.

Beyond words: Visual metaphors that can demonstrate comprehension of KM as a paradoxical activity system

Following criticism that, in business and management, metaphor is largely verbal and primarily used to convey similarity, this paper explores how visual metaphors can communicate the anomalous and the paradoxical aspects of KM more concisely than words, whilst simultaneously presenting more tacit associations to stimulate creative thinking. It considers a series of 30 assessed posters that aimed to re-present six basic KM paradoxes through imagery that captures both the analogous and the anomalous. We found six categories of radial metaphors able to convey paradoxical complexity in a concise way. This has implications for organizations thinking about how to engage people with both the familiar and the strange. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Madness and the Illusion of Happiness in Quincas Borbas

“Ao vencedor, as batatas” era o lema de Humanitas, princípio filosófico concebido por Quincas Borba, um rico e excêntrico filósofo que se apresentava como o maior homem da terra. Usando ironia, paródia, recursos satíricos e tendo uma aguçada visão da existência humana, Machado de Assis retrata um quadro impressionante das condições políticas e sociais não apenas da decadência do império brasileiro, mas também do gênero humano. O ensaio analisa o romance machadiano - narrado em terceira pessoa e publicado em livro em 1891 - utilizando os recursos fornecidos pelos estudos de literatura comparada. As ressonâncias das leituras de Erasmo (Elogio à loucura), Cervantes (Dom Quixote), Voltaire (Cândido) e Darwin, no tocante à teoria da seleção natural das espécies, demonstram o impacto da presença da cultura europeia no pensamento do escritor brasileiro e sua aclimatação aos costumes do Rio de Janeiro num curto e turbulento período histórico em que a nação experimentava profundas mudanças políticas: a abolição da escravatura (1888) e proclamação da República no ano seguinte.

Women from the point of view of the Bukowskian narrator: the representation of the feminine universe in Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Hamlet's Ophelia: The Changing Perceptions of Suicide, Death, and Madness in the Elizabethan and Victorian Periods

William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark has been the source of question, debate, and research since its theatrical debut. In the midst of readings performances and one particular question has remained open and unresolved: was Ophelia's death an accident or a suicide? Some see Ophelia's death as an accident; others see it as a suicide resulting from the accumulation of a series of unfortunate events: her rejection by her boyfriend, her father’s murder, and her possible pregnancy. This paper will explore that age-old question from the perspectives of two historically different audiences: those of sixteenth-century and nineteenth-century England. I will argue that, despite the 300-year expanse between these two audiences, both emerged with the same conclusion: Ophelia's death was accidental. However, cultural and scientific changes affected the reasons why each came to that conclusion.

Book Review of “Human Behaviour and the Social Environment: Models, Metaphors, and Maps for Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Practice”. 640 pages, Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2007, by James A. Forte

This voluminous book which draws on almost 1000 references provides an important theoretical base for practice. After an informative introduction about models, maps and metaphors, Forte provides an impressive presentation of several perspectives for use in practice; applied ecological theory, applied system theory, applied biology, applied cognitive science, applied psychodynamic theory, applied behaviourism, applied symbolic interactionism, applied social role theory, applied economic theory, and applied critical theory. Finally he completes his book with a chapter on “Multi theory practice and routes to integration.”