Mística y seducción : el affaire Cadière-Girard y el triunfo de la racionalidad ilustrada en Thérèse philosophe

[en] This article aims at examining the theoretic and literary models of sexuality offered in the libertine novel Thérèse philosophe, focusing on its representation of the Cadière-Girard affair. During this scandalous trial that took place in the Parliament of Aix-en-Provence in 1731, Jean-Baptiste Girard (Jesuit priest) was accused by Marie-Catherine Cadière (penitent) of sorcery and sexual abuse, while he claimed these charges were calumnies. We seek to show the development of a rationalist, demystifying, scientific perspective on this affair, characteristic of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, which tended to neutralize and obliterate charismatic religiosity. [fr] Cet article a pour but d’examiner les modèles théoriques et littéraires de la sexualité offerts par le roman libertin Thérèse philosophe, en se concentrant sur la façon dont l’affaire Cadière-Girard y est représentée. Pendant ce procès judiciaire qui a eu lieu au Parlement d’Aix-en-Provence en 1731, Jean-Baptiste Girard (père jésuite) a été accusé par Marie-Catherine Cadière (pénitente) de sorcellerie et abus, ayant reçu elle-même une dénonciation pour calomnies. On cherche à montrer le développement, autour de cette affaire, d’une perspective rationaliste, démystifiante et scientifique, propre des Lumières au XVIIIe siècle, à partir de laquelle la religiosité charismatique se neutralise au point de l’oblitération.

A narrativa histórica de Alexandre Wollner sobre o design brasileiro em sua relação com arte, indústria e tecnologia

This work aims to investigate the historical narratives in which the graphic designer Alexandre Wollner assembled about the development of its own profession in Brazil, focusing the ways in which his discourse points relations among design (with greater emphasis in graphic design) and visual arts, the industrial development and notions about technology. Firstly, the theoretical setup searched for dialogues with design historians, with Mikhail Bakhtin, specially his concepts about “ideology” and “discourse’, and the theory of Field Autonomy by Pierre Bourdieu applied in the artistic practice. Following, the relation between Wollner’s own journey and the Brazilian industrial development is shown, and, at last, three of his historical texts are studied, which are written in different moments (1964; 1983; 1998), being those in which the analyzed author wished to point out the origens, events and names that are more remarkable. Throughout the work, it is pointed the importance of Wollner’s contact with the modernist european ideologies that share an abstract and rationalist matrix found at Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm (HfG Ulm), the german design school from the city of Ulm, in the 1950s. Such modernist discourse understood the practice of design as a method with scientific character, being then different of some other more recurring artistic professional practices in some productive sectors. Wollner aimed to apply such ideals in his professional practice, being the foundation of the paulista office forminform, in 1958, one of his first expressions of such posture, and in his academic practice, helping the foundation of the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI), in Rio de Janeiro, in 1963. Such modernist ideals went along with moments of the Brazilian industrial development during the government of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961) and the “Economical Miracle” from the military government (1968–1973). Wollner argued about the need for the development of national design as a technological and productive differential that would help the growth of national industry, based on Ulm’s project model concept. It is defended that Wollner’s professional and intelectual path, in his efforts of thinking a history of Brazilian design through the choice of pioneers in the area, was founded on an “ideal model” of design, leaving aside the modernist experiences from the 1950s. Such posture would indicate a search for validation of his own profession that was beginning to become more evident in Brazilian productive means, aiming the creation of a differential space in comparison with pre-established practices, usually link to graphic artists from the time.

Visual Insight in Geometry

According to a traditional rationalist proposal, it is possible to attain knowledge of certain necessary truths by means of insight—an epistemic mental act that combines the 'presentational' character of perception with the a priori status usually reserved for discursive reasoning. In this dissertation, I defend the insight proposal in relation to a specific subject matter: elementary Euclidean plane geometry, as set out in Book I of Euclid's Elements. In particular, I argue that visualizations and visual experiences of diagrams allow human subjects to grasp truths of geometry by means of visual insight. In the first two chapters, I provide an initial defense of the geometrical insight proposal, drawing on a novel interpretation of Plato's Meno to motivate the view and to reply to some objections. In the remaining three chapters, I provide an account of the psychological underpinnings of geometrical insight, a task that requires considering the psychology of visual imagery alongside the details of Euclid's geometrical system. One important challenge is to explain how basic features of human visual representations can serve to ground our intuitive grasp of Euclid's postulates and other initial assumptions. A second challenge is to explain how we are able to grasp general theorems by considering diagrams that depict only special cases. I argue that both of these challenges can be met by an account that regards geometrical insight as based in visual experiences involving the combined deployment of two varieties of 'dynamic' visual imagery: one that allows the subject to visually rehearse spatial transformations of a figure's parts, and another that allows the subject to entertain alternative ways of structurally integrating the figure as a whole. It is the interplay between these two forms of dynamic imagery that enables a visual experience of a diagram, suitably animated in visual imagination, to justify belief in the propositions of Euclid’s geometry. The upshot is a novel dynamic imagery account that explains how intuitive knowledge of elementary Euclidean plane geometry can be understood as grounded in visual insight.

Europeanization beyond the EU: The case of Georgia.

320 p.

Playing the game: critical literacy, gender justice and issues of masculinity

This paper explores issues of critical literacy, gender justice and masculinity through ‘Mr A’s’ story. Mr A is head of English at ‘Grange College’ – an all boys’ school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). The paper highlights how the privileging of rationality, control and ‘the masculine’ within Mr A’s ‘teaching‐as‐usual’ discourse constrains his efforts to pursue gender justice through critical literacy. While Mr A scaffolds his students’ critical analysis of gender and power in texts, his investments in teacher/student binary relations draw rigid boundaries between himself and his students in ways that delegitimise the terrain beyond the rational and ignore a theorising of the self. Drawing on Mr A’s story within Davies’ theorising about the possibilities of critical literacy, this paper adds to key work in arguing the importance of teachers’ interrogating their classrooms as lived texts where the relations of domination and power that derail the social justice possibilities of critical literacy can be made both recognisable and revisable. Such interrogation is foregrounded here as particularly urgent within the current moment where rationalist discourses within and beyond schools are increasingly working to circumscribe and constrain teacher practice in ways that stifle transformative social agendas.