A busca da experiência total do humano na poesia de Alexei Bueno

Pós-graduação em Estudos Literários - FCLAR

Relações de gênero e sexualidade na educação infantil: interfaces que envolvem as práticas pedagógicas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Entre Maria e as dores: cotidiano e subjetividades de mulheres em situação de violência doméstica, Marília – SP (2006-2014)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

My life as a clone

Zehar, an extremely popular and dignified man, is a renowned scientist. He has worked extremely hard, and spend two years, on a research to make human cloning.His idea was to produce the creature, simply of its own looking and exactly identical as him. To his satisfaction he had accomplished to make the physical characteristic, simply like his own. Even his experiment on a mentality and emotional aspect of a clone was also a success. But his last and the most vital wish, remained a complete failure. He wanted that the soul of the cloning should also be identical like his own soul, as the physical characteristics. But it was a complete different. The character of the cloning was getting too dangerous and later part he found he has to lose all his sympathy of his own clone, as his clone had became the most dangerous enemy in his life. All his fame and his moral character is being uprooted to the public by his clone. Ultimately he decides to kill it, and clone even takes a motto to kill Zehar, if Zehar decides to kill it, simply because, the clone wants to create his own fame to rule the world. Thus the story, gives an advice, to the world of science, that not to try human clones, in particular.

The Emergence of the Post-Socialist Welfare State - The Case of the Baltic States : Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

This dissertation takes a step towards providing a better understanding of post-socialist welfare state development from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. The overall analytical goal of this thesis has been to critically assess the development of social policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using them as illustrative examples of post-socialist welfare state development in the light of the theories, approaches and typologies that have been developed to study affluent capitalist democracies. The four studies included in this dissertation aspire to a common aim in a number of specific ways. The first study tries to place the ideal-typical welfare state models of the Baltic States within the well-known welfare state typologies. At the same time, it provides a rich overview of the main social security institutions in the three countries by comparing them with each other and with the previous structures of the Soviet period. It examines the social insurance institutions of the Baltic States (old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, short-term benefits, sickness, maternity and parental insurance and family benefits) with respect to conditions of eligibility, replacement rates, financing and contributions. The findings of this study indicate that the Latvian social security system can generally be labelled as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models. The Estonian social security system can generally also be characterised as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models, even if there are some weak elements of the targeted model in it. It appears that the institutional changes developing in the social security system of Lithuania have led to a combination of the basic security and targeted models of the welfare state. Nevertheless, as the example of the three Baltic States shows, there is diversity in how these countries solve problems within the field of social policy. In studying the social security schemes in detail, some common features were found that could be attributed to all three countries. Therefore, the critical analysis of the main social security institutions of the Baltic States in this study gave strong supporting evidence in favour of identifying the post-socialist regime type that is already gaining acceptance within comparative welfare state research. Study Two compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the essay is to highlight the forces that have influenced the transformation of the social policy from its former highly universal, albeit authoritarian, form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This study demonstrates that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. The results of this analysis revealed that people's attitudes towards distributive justice and the developmental level of civil society also play an important part in shaping social policies. The shift to individualism in people’s mentality and the decline of the labour movement, or, to be more precise, the decline in trade union membership and influence, does nothing to promote the development of social rights in the Baltic countries and hinders the expansion of social policies. The legacy of the past has been another important factor in shaping social programs. It can be concluded that social policy should be studied as if embedded not only in the welfare-economy nexus, but also in the societal, historical and cultural nexus of a given society. Study Three discusses the views of the state elites on family policy within a wider theoretical setting covering family policy and social policy in a broader sense and attempts to expand this analytical framework to include other post-socialist countries. The aim of this essay is to explore the various views of the state elites in the Baltics concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the motives behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance the parents’ responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Estonian policy-makers seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality is more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. It is strongly arguable that there is a link between the underlying motives and the kinds of family benefits in a given country. This study, thus, indicates how intimately the attitudes of the state bureaucrats, policy-makers, political elite and researchers shape social policy. It confirms that family policy is a product of the prevailing ideology within a country, while the potential influence of globalisation and Europeanisation is detectable too. The final essay takes into account the opinions of welfare users and examines the performances of the institutionalised family benefits by relying on the recipients’ opinions regarding these benefits. The opinions of the populations as a whole regarding government efforts to help families are compared with those of the welfare users. Various family benefits are evaluated according to the recipients' satisfaction with those benefits as well as the contemporaneous levels of subjective satisfaction with the welfare programs related to the absolute level of expenditure on each program. The findings of this paper indicate that, in Latvia, people experience a lower level of success regarding state-run family insurance institutions, as compared to those in Lithuania and Estonia. This is deemed to be because the cash benefits for families and children in Latvia are, on average, seen as marginally influencing the overall financial situation of the families concerned. In Lithuania and Estonia, the overwhelming majority think that the family benefit systems improve the financial situation of families. It appears that recipients evaluated universal family benefits as less positive than targeted benefits. Some universal benefits negatively influenced the level of general satisfaction with the family benefits system provided in the countries being researched. This study puts forward a discussion about whether universalism is always more legitimate than targeting. In transitional economies, in which resources are highly constrained, some forms of universal benefits could turn out to be very expensive in relative terms, without being seen as useful or legitimate forms of help to families. In sum, by closely examining the different aspects of social policy, this dissertation goes beyond the over-generalisation of Eastern European welfare state development and, instead, takes a more detailed look at what is really going on in these countries through the examples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition, another important contribution made by this study is that it revives ‘western’ theoretical knowledge through ‘eastern’ empirical evidence and provides the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework for post-socialist societies.

La "responsabilità sociale" dell'imprenditore negli ambienti cattolici lombardi dagli anni Trenta alla Ricostruzione

My research focuses on the mentality of catholic entrepreneurs and managers in Italy between the 1930's and the 1950's. The main source of my study is the archive of an organization called Unione Cristiana Imprenditori Dirigenti [Christian Entrepreneurs and Managers Association], which was founded in Milan in 1945 with the pedagogic intent to foster higher moral standards and social responsibility in the milieux of catholic entrepreneurs, in the spirit of the Social Doctrine of the Church. This experience was set in the social and political context of the Italian post-war years, but it was also rooted in the debate – started during the 1930s - on the rise of a new catholic leadership in society.

Il passato nell’epoca della sua (ri)producibilità digitale. Torino 1943 - 45. Metodologia della ricerca con tecnologie informatiche. Sistema storico-territoriale di informazione multimediale

Se il lavoro dello storico è capire il passato come è stato compreso dalla gente che lo ha vissuto, allora forse non è azzardato pensare che sia anche necessario comunicare i risultati delle ricerche con strumenti propri che appartengono a un'epoca e che influenzano la mentalità di chi in quell'epoca vive. Emergenti tecnologie, specialmente nell’area della multimedialità come la realtà virtuale, permettono agli storici di comunicare l’esperienza del passato in più sensi. In che modo la storia collabora con le tecnologie informatiche soffermandosi sulla possibilità di fare ricostruzioni storiche virtuali, con relativi esempi e recensioni? Quello che maggiormente preoccupa gli storici è se una ricostruzione di un fatto passato vissuto attraverso la sua ricreazione in pixels sia un metodo di conoscenza della storia che possa essere considerato valido. Ovvero l'emozione che la navigazione in una realtà 3D può suscitare, è un mezzo in grado di trasmettere conoscenza? O forse l'idea che abbiamo del passato e del suo studio viene sottilmente cambiato nel momento in cui lo si divulga attraverso la grafica 3D? Da tempo però la disciplina ha cominciato a fare i conti con questa situazione, costretta soprattutto dall'invasività di questo tipo di media, dalla spettacolarizzazione del passato e da una divulgazione del passato parziale e antiscientifica. In un mondo post letterario bisogna cominciare a pensare che la cultura visuale nella quale siamo immersi sta cambiando il nostro rapporto con il passato: non per questo le conoscenze maturate fino ad oggi sono false, ma è necessario riconoscere che esiste più di una verità storica, a volte scritta a volte visuale. Il computer è diventato una piattaforma onnipresente per la rappresentazione e diffusione dell’informazione. I metodi di interazione e rappresentazione stanno evolvendo di continuo. Ed è su questi due binari che è si muove l’offerta delle tecnologie informatiche al servizio della storia. Lo scopo di questa tesi è proprio quello di esplorare, attraverso l’utilizzo e la sperimentazione di diversi strumenti e tecnologie informatiche, come si può raccontare efficacemente il passato attraverso oggetti tridimensionali e gli ambienti virtuali, e come, nel loro essere elementi caratterizzanti di comunicazione, in che modo possono collaborare, in questo caso particolare, con la disciplina storica. La presente ricerca ricostruisce alcune linee di storia delle principali fabbriche attive a Torino durante la seconda guerra mondiale, ricordando stretta relazione che esiste tra strutture ed individui e in questa città in particolare tra fabbrica e movimento operaio, è inevitabile addentrarsi nelle vicende del movimento operaio torinese che nel periodo della lotta di Liberazione in città fu un soggetto politico e sociale di primo rilievo. Nella città, intesa come entità biologica coinvolta nella guerra, la fabbrica (o le fabbriche) diventa il nucleo concettuale attraverso il quale leggere la città: sono le fabbriche gli obiettivi principali dei bombardamenti ed è nelle fabbriche che si combatte una guerra di liberazione tra classe operaia e autorità, di fabbrica e cittadine. La fabbrica diventa il luogo di "usurpazione del potere" di cui parla Weber, il palcoscenico in cui si tengono i diversi episodi della guerra: scioperi, deportazioni, occupazioni .... Il modello della città qui rappresentata non è una semplice visualizzazione ma un sistema informativo dove la realtà modellata è rappresentata da oggetti, che fanno da teatro allo svolgimento di avvenimenti con una precisa collocazione cronologica, al cui interno è possibile effettuare operazioni di selezione di render statici (immagini), di filmati precalcolati (animazioni) e di scenari navigabili interattivamente oltre ad attività di ricerca di fonti bibliografiche e commenti di studiosi segnatamente legati all'evento in oggetto. Obiettivo di questo lavoro è far interagire, attraverso diversi progetti, le discipline storiche e l’informatica, nelle diverse opportunità tecnologiche che questa presenta. Le possibilità di ricostruzione offerte dal 3D vengono così messe a servizio della ricerca, offrendo una visione integrale in grado di avvicinarci alla realtà dell’epoca presa in considerazione e convogliando in un’unica piattaforma espositiva tutti i risultati. Divulgazione Progetto Mappa Informativa Multimediale Torino 1945 Sul piano pratico il progetto prevede una interfaccia navigabile (tecnologia Flash) che rappresenti la pianta della città dell’epoca, attraverso la quale sia possibile avere una visione dei luoghi e dei tempi in cui la Liberazione prese forma, sia a livello concettuale, sia a livello pratico. Questo intreccio di coordinate nello spazio e nel tempo non solo migliora la comprensione dei fenomeni, ma crea un maggiore interesse sull’argomento attraverso l’utilizzo di strumenti divulgativi di grande efficacia (e appeal) senza perdere di vista la necessità di valicare le tesi storiche proponendosi come piattaforma didattica. Un tale contesto richiede uno studio approfondito degli eventi storici al fine di ricostruire con chiarezza una mappa della città che sia precisa sia topograficamente sia a livello di navigazione multimediale. La preparazione della cartina deve seguire gli standard del momento, perciò le soluzioni informatiche utilizzate sono quelle fornite da Adobe Illustrator per la realizzazione della topografia, e da Macromedia Flash per la creazione di un’interfaccia di navigazione. La base dei dati descrittivi è ovviamente consultabile essendo contenuta nel supporto media e totalmente annotata nella bibliografia. È il continuo evolvere delle tecnologie d'informazione e la massiccia diffusione dell’uso dei computer che ci porta a un cambiamento sostanziale nello studio e nell’apprendimento storico; le strutture accademiche e gli operatori economici hanno fatto propria la richiesta che giunge dall'utenza (insegnanti, studenti, operatori dei Beni Culturali) di una maggiore diffusione della conoscenza storica attraverso la sua rappresentazione informatizzata. Sul fronte didattico la ricostruzione di una realtà storica attraverso strumenti informatici consente anche ai non-storici di toccare con mano quelle che sono le problematiche della ricerca quali fonti mancanti, buchi della cronologia e valutazione della veridicità dei fatti attraverso prove. Le tecnologie informatiche permettono una visione completa, unitaria ed esauriente del passato, convogliando tutte le informazioni su un'unica piattaforma, permettendo anche a chi non è specializzato di comprendere immediatamente di cosa si parla. Il miglior libro di storia, per sua natura, non può farlo in quanto divide e organizza le notizie in modo diverso. In questo modo agli studenti viene data l'opportunità di apprendere tramite una rappresentazione diversa rispetto a quelle a cui sono abituati. La premessa centrale del progetto è che i risultati nell'apprendimento degli studenti possono essere migliorati se un concetto o un contenuto viene comunicato attraverso più canali di espressione, nel nostro caso attraverso un testo, immagini e un oggetto multimediale. Didattica La Conceria Fiorio è uno dei luoghi-simbolo della Resistenza torinese. Il progetto è una ricostruzione in realtà virtuale della Conceria Fiorio di Torino. La ricostruzione serve a arricchire la cultura storica sia a chi la produce, attraverso una ricerca accurata delle fonti, sia a chi può poi usufruirne, soprattutto i giovani, che, attratti dall’aspetto ludico della ricostruzione, apprendono con più facilità. La costruzione di un manufatto in 3D fornisce agli studenti le basi per riconoscere ed esprimere la giusta relazione fra il modello e l’oggetto storico. Le fasi di lavoro attraverso cui si è giunti alla ricostruzione in 3D della Conceria: . una ricerca storica approfondita, basata sulle fonti, che possono essere documenti degli archivi o scavi archeologici, fonti iconografiche, cartografiche, ecc.; . La modellazione degli edifici sulla base delle ricerche storiche, per fornire la struttura geometrica poligonale che permetta la navigazione tridimensionale; . La realizzazione, attraverso gli strumenti della computer graphic della navigazione in 3D. Unreal Technology è il nome dato al motore grafico utilizzato in numerosi videogiochi commerciali. Una delle caratteristiche fondamentali di tale prodotto è quella di avere uno strumento chiamato Unreal editor con cui è possibile costruire mondi virtuali, e che è quello utilizzato per questo progetto. UnrealEd (Ued) è il software per creare livelli per Unreal e i giochi basati sul motore di Unreal. E’ stata utilizzata la versione gratuita dell’editor. Il risultato finale del progetto è un ambiente virtuale navigabile raffigurante una ricostruzione accurata della Conceria Fiorio ai tempi della Resistenza. L’utente può visitare l’edificio e visualizzare informazioni specifiche su alcuni punti di interesse. La navigazione viene effettuata in prima persona, un processo di “spettacolarizzazione” degli ambienti visitati attraverso un arredamento consono permette all'utente una maggiore immersività rendendo l’ambiente più credibile e immediatamente codificabile. L’architettura Unreal Technology ha permesso di ottenere un buon risultato in un tempo brevissimo, senza che fossero necessari interventi di programmazione. Questo motore è, quindi, particolarmente adatto alla realizzazione rapida di prototipi di una discreta qualità, La presenza di un certo numero di bug lo rende, però, in parte inaffidabile. Utilizzare un editor da videogame per questa ricostruzione auspica la possibilità di un suo impiego nella didattica, quello che le simulazioni in 3D permettono nel caso specifico è di permettere agli studenti di sperimentare il lavoro della ricostruzione storica, con tutti i problemi che lo storico deve affrontare nel ricreare il passato. Questo lavoro vuole essere per gli storici una esperienza nella direzione della creazione di un repertorio espressivo più ampio, che includa gli ambienti tridimensionali. Il rischio di impiegare del tempo per imparare come funziona questa tecnologia per generare spazi virtuali rende scettici quanti si impegnano nell'insegnamento, ma le esperienze di progetti sviluppati, soprattutto all’estero, servono a capire che sono un buon investimento. Il fatto che una software house, che crea un videogame di grande successo di pubblico, includa nel suo prodotto, una serie di strumenti che consentano all'utente la creazione di mondi propri in cui giocare, è sintomatico che l'alfabetizzazione informatica degli utenti medi sta crescendo sempre più rapidamente e che l'utilizzo di un editor come Unreal Engine sarà in futuro una attività alla portata di un pubblico sempre più vasto. Questo ci mette nelle condizioni di progettare moduli di insegnamento più immersivi, in cui l'esperienza della ricerca e della ricostruzione del passato si intreccino con lo studio più tradizionale degli avvenimenti di una certa epoca. I mondi virtuali interattivi vengono spesso definiti come la forma culturale chiave del XXI secolo, come il cinema lo è stato per il XX. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è stato quello di suggerire che vi sono grosse opportunità per gli storici impiegando gli oggetti e le ambientazioni in 3D, e che essi devono coglierle. Si consideri il fatto che l’estetica abbia un effetto sull’epistemologia. O almeno sulla forma che i risultati delle ricerche storiche assumono nel momento in cui devono essere diffuse. Un’analisi storica fatta in maniera superficiale o con presupposti errati può comunque essere diffusa e avere credito in numerosi ambienti se diffusa con mezzi accattivanti e moderni. Ecco perchè non conviene seppellire un buon lavoro in qualche biblioteca, in attesa che qualcuno lo scopra. Ecco perchè gli storici non devono ignorare il 3D. La nostra capacità, come studiosi e studenti, di percepire idee ed orientamenti importanti dipende spesso dai metodi che impieghiamo per rappresentare i dati e l’evidenza. Perché gli storici possano ottenere il beneficio che il 3D porta con sè, tuttavia, devono sviluppare un’agenda di ricerca volta ad accertarsi che il 3D sostenga i loro obiettivi di ricercatori e insegnanti. Una ricostruzione storica può essere molto utile dal punto di vista educativo non sono da chi la visita ma, anche da chi la realizza. La fase di ricerca necessaria per la ricostruzione non può fare altro che aumentare il background culturale dello sviluppatore. Conclusioni La cosa più importante è stata la possibilità di fare esperienze nell’uso di mezzi di comunicazione di questo genere per raccontare e far conoscere il passato. Rovesciando il paradigma conoscitivo che avevo appreso negli studi umanistici, ho cercato di desumere quelle che potremo chiamare “leggi universali” dai dati oggettivi emersi da questi esperimenti. Da punto di vista epistemologico l’informatica, con la sua capacità di gestire masse impressionanti di dati, dà agli studiosi la possibilità di formulare delle ipotesi e poi accertarle o smentirle tramite ricostruzioni e simulazioni. Il mio lavoro è andato in questa direzione, cercando conoscere e usare strumenti attuali che nel futuro avranno sempre maggiore presenza nella comunicazione (anche scientifica) e che sono i mezzi di comunicazione d’eccellenza per determinate fasce d’età (adolescenti). Volendo spingere all’estremo i termini possiamo dire che la sfida che oggi la cultura visuale pone ai metodi tradizionali del fare storia è la stessa che Erodoto e Tucidide contrapposero ai narratori di miti e leggende. Prima di Erodoto esisteva il mito, che era un mezzo perfettamente adeguato per raccontare e dare significato al passato di una tribù o di una città. In un mondo post letterario la nostra conoscenza del passato sta sottilmente mutando nel momento in cui lo vediamo rappresentato da pixel o quando le informazioni scaturiscono non da sole, ma grazie all’interattività con il mezzo. La nostra capacità come studiosi e studenti di percepire idee ed orientamenti importanti dipende spesso dai metodi che impieghiamo per rappresentare i dati e l’evidenza. Perché gli storici possano ottenere il beneficio sottinteso al 3D, tuttavia, devono sviluppare un’agenda di ricerca volta ad accertarsi che il 3D sostenga i loro obiettivi di ricercatori e insegnanti. Le esperienze raccolte nelle pagine precedenti ci portano a pensare che in un futuro non troppo lontano uno strumento come il computer sarà l’unico mezzo attraverso cui trasmettere conoscenze, e dal punto di vista didattico la sua interattività consente coinvolgimento negli studenti come nessun altro mezzo di comunicazione moderno.

Aldo Rossi, autobiografia scientifica: scrittura come progetto. Indagine critica tra scrittura e progetto di architettura

«In altri termini mi sfuggiva e ancora oggi mi sfugge gran parte del significato dell’evoluzione del tempo; come se il tempo fosse una materia che osservo dall’esterno. Questa mancanza di evoluzione è fonte di alcune mie sventure ma anche mi appartiene con gioia.» Aldo Rossi, Autobiografia scientifica. The temporal dimension underpinning the draft of Autobiografia scientifica by Aldo Rossi may be referred to what Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, the well-known French anthropologist, defines as “primitive mentality” and “prelogical” conscience : the book of life has lost its page numbers, even punctuation. For Lévy-Bruhl, but certainly for Rossi, life or its summing up becomes a continuous account of ellipses, gaps, repetitions that may be read from left to right or viceversa, from head to foot or viceversa without distinction. Rossi’s autobiographical writing seems to accept and support the confusion with which memories have been collected, recording them after the order memory gives them in the mental distillation or simply according to the chronological order in which they have happened. For Rossi, the confusion reflects the melting of memory elements into a composite image which is the result of a fusion. He is aware that the same sap pervades all memories he is going to put in order: each of them has got a common denominator. Differences have diminished, almost faded; the quick glance is prevalent over the distinction of each episode. Rossi’s writing is beyond the categories dependent on time: past and present, before and now. For Rossi, the only repetition – the repetition the text will make possible for an indefinite number of times – gives peculiarity to the event. As Gilles Deleuze knows, “things” may only last as “singleness”: more frequent the repetition is, more singular is the memory phenomenon that recurs, because only what is singular magnifies itself and happens endlessly forever. Rossi understands that “to raise the first time to nth forever”, repetition becomes glorification . It may be an autobiography that, celebrating the originality, enhances the memory event in the repetition; in fact it greatly differs from the biographical reproduction, in which each repetition is but a weaker echo, a duller copy, provided with a smaller an smaller power in comparison with the original. Paradoxically, for Deleuze the repetition asserts the originality and singularity of what is repeated. Rossi seems to share the thought expressed by Kierkegaard in the essay Repetition: «The hope is a graceful maiden slipping through your fingers; the memory of an elderly woman, indeed pretty, but never satisfactory if necessary; the repetition is a loved friend you are never tired of, as it is only the new to make you bored. The old never bores you and its presence makes you happy [...] life is but a repetition [...] here is the beauty of life» . Rossi knows well that repetition hints at the lasting stability of cosmic time. Kierkegaard goes on: «The world exists, and it exists as a repetition» . Rossi devotes himself, on purpose and in all conscience, to collect, to inventory and «to review life», his own life, according to a recovery not from the past but of the past: a search work, the «recherche du temps perdu», as Proust entitled his masterpiece on memory. If you want the past time to be not wasted, you must give it presence. «Memoria e specifico come caratteristiche per riconoscere se stesso e ciò che è estraneo mi sembravano le più chiare condizioni e spiegazioni della realtà. Non esiste uno specifico senza memoria, e una memoria che non provenga da un momento specifico; e solo questa unione permette la conoscenza della propria individualità e del contrario (self e non-self)» . Rossi wants to understand himself, his own character; it is really his own character that requires to be understood, to increase its own introspective ability and intelligence. «Può sembrare strano che Planck e Dante associno la loro ricerca scientifica e autobiografica con la morte; una morte che è in qualche modo continuazione di energia. In realtà, in ogni artista o tecnico, il principio della continuazione dell’energia si mescola con la ricerca della felicità e della morte» . The eschatological incipit of Rossi’s autobiography refers to Freud’s thought in the exact circularity of Dante’s framework and in as much exact circularity of the statement of the principle of the conservation of energy: in fact it was Freud to connect repetition to death. For Freud, the desire of repetition is an instinct rooted in biology. The primary aim of such an instinct would be to restore a previous condition, so that the repeated history represents a part of the past (even if concealed) and, relieving the removal, reduces anguish and tension. So, Freud ask himself, what is the most remote state to which the instinct, through the repetition, wants to go back? It is a pre-vital condition, inorganic of the pure entropy, a not-to-be condition in which doesn’t exist any tension; in other words, Death. Rossi, with the theme of death, introduces the theme of circularity which further on refers to the sense of continuity in transformation or, in the opposite way, the transformation in continuity. «[...] la descrizione e il rilievo delle forme antiche permettevano una continuità altrimenti irripetibile, permettevano anche una trasformazione, una volta che la vita fosse fermata in forme precise» . Rossi’s attitude seems to hint at the reflection on time and – in a broad sense – at the thought on life and things expressed by T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets: «Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future is contained in time past. / I all time is eternally present / All time is unredeemable. / What might have been is an abstraction / Remaining perpetual possibility / Only in a word of speculation. / What might have been and what has been / Point to one end, which is always present. [...]» . Aldo Rossi’s autobiographical story coincides with the description of “things” and the description of himself through the things in the exact parallel with craft or art. He seems to get all things made by man to coincide with the personal or artistic story, with the consequent immediate necessity of formulating a new interpretation: the flow of things has never met a total stop; all that exists nowadays is but a repetition or a variant of something existing some time ago and so on, without any interruption until the early dawnings of human life. Nevertheless, Rossi must operate specific subdivisions inside the continuous connection in time – of his time – even if limited by a present beginning and end of his own existence. This artist, as an “historian” of himself and his own life – as an auto-biographer – enjoys the privilege to be able to decide if and how to operate the cutting in a certain point rather than in another one, without being compelled to justify his choice. In this sense, his story is a matter very ductile and flexible: a good story-teller can choose any moment to start a certain sequence of events. Yet, Rossi is aware that, beyond the mere narration, there is the problem to identify in history - his own personal story – those flakings where a clean cut enables the separation of events of different nature. In order to do it, he has to make not only an inventory of his own “things”, but also to appeal to authority of the Divina Commedia started by Dante when he was 30. «A trent’anni si deve compiere o iniziare qualcosa di definitivo e fare i conti con la propria formazione» . For Rossi, the poet performs his authority not only in the text, but also in his will of setting out on a mystical journey and handing it down through an exact descriptive will. Rossi turns not only to the authority of poetry, but also evokes the authority of science with Max Plank and his Scientific Autobiography, published, in Italian translation, by Einaudi, 1956. Concerning Planck, Rossi resumes an element seemingly secondary in hit account where the German physicist «[...] risale alle scoperte della fisica moderna ritrovando l’impressione che gli fece l’enunciazione del principio di conservazione dell’energia; [...]» . It is again the act of describing that links Rossi to Planck, it is the description of a circularity, the one of conservation of energy, which endorses Rossi’s autobiographical speech looking for both happiness and death. Rossi seems to agree perfectly to the thought of Planck at the opening of his own autobiography: «The decision to devote myself to science was a direct consequence of a discovery which was never ceased to arouse my enthusiasm since my early youth: the laws of human thought coincide with the ones governing the sequences of the impressions we receive from the world surrounding us, so that the mere logic can enable us to penetrate into the latter one’s mechanism. It is essential that the outer world is something independent of man, something absolute. The search of the laws dealing with this absolute seems to me the highest scientific aim in life» . For Rossi the survey of his own life represents a way to change the events into experiences, to concentrate the emotion and group them in meaningful plots: «It seems, as one becomes older. / That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence [...]» Eliot wrote in Four Quartet, which are a meditation on time, old age and memory . And he goes on: «We had the experience but missed the meaning, / And approach to the meaning restores the experience / In a different form, beyond any meaning [...]» . Rossi restores in his autobiography – but not only in it – the most ancient sense of memory, aware that for at least 15 centuries the Latin word memoria was used to show the activity of bringing back images to mind: the psychology of memory, which starts with Aristotele (De Anima), used to consider such a faculty totally essential to mind. Keith Basso writes: «The thought materializes in the form of “images”» . Rossi knows well – as Aristotele said – that if you do not have a collection of mental images to remember – imagination – there is no thought at all. According to this psychological tradition, what today we conventionally call “memory” is but a way of imagining created by time. Rossi, entering consciously this stream of thought, passing through the Renaissance ars memoriae to reach us gives a great importance to the word and assumes it as a real place, much more than a recollection, even more than a production and an emotional elaboration of images.

Fighting corruption with pyramids: A Law and Economics approach to combating corruption in post-socialist countries

Corruption is, in the last two decades, considered as one of the biggest problems within the international community, which harms not only a particular state or society but the whole world. The discussion on corruption in law and economics approach is mainly run under the veil of Public choice theory and principal-agent model. Based on this approach the strong international initiatives taken by the UN, the OECD and the Council of Europe, provided various measures and tools in order to support and guide countries in their combat against corruption. These anti-corruption policies created a repression -prevention-transparency model for corruption combat. Applying this model, countries around the world adopted anti-corruption strategies as part of their legal rules. Nevertheless, the recent researches on the effects of this move show non impressive results. Critics argue that “one size does not fit all” because the institutional setting of countries around the world varies. Among the countries which experience problems of corruption, even though they follow the dominant anti-corruption trends, are transitional, post-socialist countries. To this group belong the countries which are emerging from centrally planned to an open market economy. The socialist past left traces on institutional setting, mentality of the individuals and their interrelation, particularly in the domain of public administration. If the idiosyncrasy of these countries is taken into account the suggestion in this thesis is that in public administration in post-socialist countries, instead of dominant anti-corruption scheme repression-prevention-transparency, corruption combat should be improved through the implementation of a new one, structure-conduct-performance. The implementation of this model is based on three regulatory pyramids: anti-corruption, disciplinary anti-corruption and criminal anti-corruption pyramid. This approach asks public administration itself to engage in corruption combat, leaving criminal justice system as the ultimate weapon, used only for the very harmful misdeeds.

Fremder Bruder: die Teilungssituation zwischen Süd- und Nordkorea im Spiegel des koreanischen Films seit dem Korea-Krieg

Als charakteristische Besonderheit in der koreanischen Geschichte besitzt der Korea-Krieg eine wichtige Position, so dass er bisher die gesamte Landesstruktur und -geschichte stark beeinflusst hat. Das gilt auch für die koreanische Filmgeschichte und nach dem Korea-Krieg im Jahr 1950 wurde in den Filmen das Thema „Landesteilung“ häufig aufgegriffen und bis heute oft behandelt.rnIn dieser Untersuchung werden solche Filme als Konflikt-Filme bezeichnet, die die Spaltung des Landes und die Beziehungen zu Nordkorea thematisieren, und insgesamt 60 Beispielfilme aus verschiedenen Filmgenres seit dem Ende des Korea-Kriegs bis zur Gegenwart analysiert und unter dem Aspekt beleuchtet, wie diese politischen und gesellschaftlichen Themen über das Verhältnis zwischen Süd- und Nordkorea repräsentiert werden. Mit Hilfe von Beispielfilmen wird versucht, herauszufinden, wie stark und unterschiedlich der Bruderkrieg und die davon abgeleitete Teilung des Landes in südkoreanischen Filmen im Wandel der Geschichte widergespiegelt werden. rnDiese Arbeit setzt sich zuerst mit Kracauers Spiegeltheorie, einer filmsoziologischen Theorie, und der Genretheorie als wichtigen theoretischen Überlegungen auseinander, um zu verdeutlichen, in welchem Bezug Konfliktfilme über die südkoreanische Gesellschaft angesehen werden und welche Rolle sie als Spiegel der Gesellschaft spielen, um gesellschaftliche Stimmungen, Bewusstseinsformen und Wünsche zu verdeutlichen. Dabei werden die kulturellen und gesellschaftlichen sowie filmwirtschaftlichen Aspekte berücksichtigt. rnDie vorliegende Arbeit bietet einen umfangreichen Überblick über den Konfliktfilm im südkoreanischen Kino seit dem Korea-Krieg. Die koreanischen Konflikt-Filme als regional-spezifische Filmkategorie stehen im engen Zusammenhang mit dieser politischen Situation und die Darstellung sowie Thematisierung Nordkoreas werden jeweils durch die verschiedenen Generationen der Filmemacher unterschiedlich präsentiert. Im südkoreanischen Diskurs bilden sie ein eigenes Genre, das alle klassischen und gemischten Filmgenres integriert; im Wandel der Geschichte haben sie sich dabei stetig weiterentwickelt, in engem Zusammenhang mit der Politik der verschiedenen Präsidenten Südkoreas gegenüber Nordkorea. rn

The Sociolinguistics of Hungarian Outside Hungary

This study describes the sociolinguistic situation of the indigenous Hungarian national minorities in Slovakia (c. 600,000), Ukraine (c. 180,000), Romania (c. 2,000,000), Yugoslavia (c. 300,000), Slovenia (c. 8,000) and Austria (c. 6,000). Following the guidelines of Hans Goebl et al, the historical sociolinguistic portrait of each minority is presented from 1920 through to the mid-1990s. Each country's report includes sections on geography and demography, history, politics, economy, culture and religion, language policy and planning, and language use (domains of minority and/or majority language use, proficiency, attitudes, etc.). The team's findings were presented in the form of 374 pages of manuscripts, articles and tables, written in Hungarian and English. The core of the team's research results lies in the results of an empirical survey designed to study the social characteristics of Hungarian-minority bilingualism in the six project countries, and the linguistic similarities and differences between the six contact varieties of Hungarian and Hungarian in Hungary. The respondents were divided by age, education, and settlement group - city vs. village and local majority vs. local minority. The first thing to be observed is that Hungarian is tending to be spoken less to children than to parents and grandparents, a familiar pattern of language shift. In contact varieties of Hungarian, analytic constructions may be used where monolingual Hungarians would use a more synthetic form. Mr Kontra gives as an example the compound tagdij, which in Standard Hungarian means "membership fee" but which is replaced in contact Hungarian by the two-word phrase tagsagi dij. Another similar example concerns the synthetic verb hegedult "played the violin" and the analytic expression hegedun jatszott. The contrast is especially striking between the Hungarians in the northern Slavic countries, who use the synthetic form frequently, and those in the southern Slavic countries, who mainly use the analytic form. Mr. Kontra notes that from a structural point of view, there is no immediate explanation for this, since Slovak or Ukrainian are as likely to cause interference as is Serbian. He postulates instead that the difference may be attributable to some sociohistoric cause, and points out that the Turkish occupation of what is today Voivodina caused a discontinuity of the Hungarian presence in the region, with the result that Hungarians were resettled in the area only two and a half centuries ago. However, the Hungarians in today's Slovakia and Ukraine have lived together with Slavic peoples continuously for over a millennium. It may be, he suggests, that 250 years of interethnic coexistence is less than is needed for such a contact-induced change to run its course. Next Mr. Kontra moved on to what he terms "mental maps and morphology". In Hungarian, the names of cities and villages take the surface case (eg. Budapest-en "in Budapest") whereas some names denoting Hungarian settlements and all names of foreign cities take the interior case (eg. Tihany-ban "in Tihany" and Boston-ban "in Boston). The role of the semantic feature "foreign" in suffix-choice can be illustrated by such minimal pairs as Velence-n "in Velence, a village in Hungary" versus Velence-ben "in Velence [=Venice], a city in Italy", and Pecs-en "in Pecs, a city in Hungary" vs. Becs-ben "in Becs, ie. Vienna". This Hungarian vs. foreign distinction is often interpreted as "belonging to historical (pre-1920) Hungary" vs. "outside historical Hungary". The distinction is also expressed in the dichotomy "home" vs. "abroad'. The 1920 border changes have had an impact on both majority and minority Hungarians' mental maps, the maps which govern the choice of surface vs. interior cases with placenames. As there is a growing divergence between the mental maps of majority and minority Hungarians, so there will be a growing divergence in their use of the placename suffixes. Two placenames were chosen to scratch the surface of this complex problem: Craiova (a city in Oltenia, Romania) and Kosovo (Hungarian Koszovo) an autonomous region in southeast Yugoslavia. The assumption to be tested was that both placenames would be used with the inessive (interior) suffixes categorically by Hungarians in Hungary, but that the superessive suffix (showing "home") would be used near-categorically by Hungarians in Romania and Yugoslavia (Voivodina). Minority Hungarians in countries other than Romania and Yugoslavia would show no difference from majority Hungarians in Hungary. In fact, the data show that, contrary to expectation, there is considerable variation within Hungary. And although Koszovo is used, as expected, with the "home" suffix by 61% of the informants in Yugoslavia, the same suffix is used by an even higher percentage of the subjects in Slovenia. Mr. Kontra's team suggests that one factor playing a role in this might be the continuance of the former Yugoslav mentality in the Hungarians of Slovenia, at least from the geographical point of view. The contact varieties of Hungarian show important grammatical differences from Hungarian in Hungary. One of these concerns the variable use of Null subjects (the inclusion or exclusion of the subject of the verb). When informants were asked to insert either megkertem or megkertem ot - "I asked her" - into a test sentence, 54.9% of the respondents in the Ukraine inserted the second phrase as opposed to only 27.4% in Hungary. Although Mr. Kontra and his team concentrated more on the differences between Contact Hungarian and Standard Hungarian, they also discovered a number of similarities. One such similarity is demonstrable in the distribution of what Mr. Kontra calls an ongoing syntactic merger in Hungarian in Hungary. This change means effectively that two possibilities merge to form a third. For instance, the two sentences Valoszinuleg kulfoldre fognak koltozni and Valoszinu, hogy kulfoldre fognak koltozni merge to form the new construction Valszinuleg, hogy kulfoldre fognak koltozni ("Probably they will move abroad."). When asked to choose "the most natural" of the sentences, one in four chose the new construction, and a chi-square test shows homogeneity in the sample. In other words, this syntactic change is spreading across the entire Hungarian-speaking region in the Carpathian Basin Mr. Kontra believes that politicians, educators, and other interested parties now have reliable and up-to-date information about each Hungarian minority. An awareness of Hungarian as a pluricentric language is being developed which elevates the status of contact varieties of Hungarian used by the minorities, an essential process, he believes, if minority languages are to be maintained.

Personality and Current Political Beliefs | Comparative Study of Polish and Belgian Samples)"

This project had a threefold aim and sought to provide answers to several different questions. Kossowska first focused on the relationship between Openness to Experience and ideological variables such as authoritarianism and conservatism. The main questions here were (1) whether there are differences between the Polish and Belgian samples studied with respect to the relationship between political ideology and Openness to Experience, and (2) whether this relationship applies to all facets of Openness to Experience. The study showed significant negative correlations between Openness and right-wing ideology in both adult samples, and that Fantasy and Actions were the most robust correlates of political ideology. A second problem examined concerned the relationship between ideology and cognitive functioning. The important questions here were about the conceptualisation and measurement of cognitive variables such as rigidity, intolerance of ambiguity, or the need for closure, which determine individuals' attitudes to politics. The results confirmed the significance of the need for closure construct in both samples for understanding the process of formulating and holding political beliefs. The last aspect of the study was the differences in political beliefs between the Polish and Belgian samples in relation to the social, political and economic situation in the two countries. The most important question here was the changes in the political mentality of Poles during the period of system transition. Kossowska expected to find differences between Poles and Belgians with respect to the level of conservatism and authoritarianism, but in fact both samples showed comparable levels of right-wing political beliefs.

Tolerance and Critical Thinking

Post-soviet countries are in the process of transformation from a totalitarian order to a democratic one, a transformation which is impossible without a profound shift in people's way of thinking. The group set themselves the task of determining the essence of this shift. Using a multidisciplinary approach, they looked at concrete ways of overcoming the totalitarian mentality and forming that necessary for an open democratic society. They studied the contemporary conceptions of tolerance and critical thinking and looked for new foundations of criticism, especially in hermeneutics. They then sought to substantiate the complementary relation between tolerance and criticism in the democratic way of thinking and to prepare a a syllabus for teaching on the subject in Ukrainian higher education. In a philosophical exploration of tolerance they began with relgious tolerance as its first and most important form. Political and social interests often lay at the foundations of religious intolerance and this implicitly comprised the transition to religious tolerance when conditions changed. Early polytheism was more or less indifferent to dogmatic deviations but monotheism is intolerant of heresies. The damage wrought by the religious wars of the Reformations transformed tolerance into a value. They did not create religious tolerance but forced its recognition as a positive phenomenon. With the weakening of religious institutions in the modern era, the purely political nature of many conflicts became evident and this stimulated the extrapolation of tolerance into secular life. Each historical era has certain acts and operations which may be interpreted as tolerant and these can be classified as to whether or not they are based on the conscious following of the principle of tolerance. This criterion requires the separation of the phenomenon of tolerance from its concept and from tolerance as a value. Only the conjunction of a concept of tolerance with a recognition of its value can transform it into a principle dictating a norm of conscious behaviour. The analysis of the contemporary conception of tolerance focused on the diversity of the concept and concluded that the notions used cannot be combined in the framework of a single more or less simple classification, as the distinctions between them are stimulated by the complexity of the realty considered and the variety of its manifestations. Notions considered in relation to tolerance included pluralism, respect and particular-universal. The rationale of tolerance was also investigated and the group felt that any substantiation of the principle of tolerance must take into account human beings' desire for knowledge. Before respecting or being tolerant of another person different from myself, I should first know where the difference lies, so knowledge is a necessary condition of tolerance.The traditional division of truth into scientific (objective and unique) and religious, moral, political (subjective and so multiple) intensifies the problem of the relationship between truth and tolerance. Science was long seen as a field of "natural" intolerance whereas the validity of tolerance was accepted in other intellectual fields. As tolerance eemrges when there is difference and opposition, it is essentially linked with rivaly and there is a a growing recognition today that unlimited rivalry is neither able to direct the process of development nor to act as creative matter. Social and economic reality has led to rivalry being regulated by the state and a natural requirement of this is to associate tolerance with a special "purified" form of rivalry, an acceptance of the actiivity of different subjects and a specification of the norms of their competition. Tolerance and rivalry should therefore be subordinate to a degree of discipline and the group point out that discipline, including self-discipline, is a regulator of the balance between them. Two problematic aspects of tolerance were identified: why something traditionally supposed to have no positive content has become a human activity today, and whether tolerance has full-scale cultural significance. The resolution of these questions requires a revision of the phenomenon and conception of tolerance to clarify its immanent positive content. This involved an investigation of the contemporary concept of tolerance and of the epistemological foundations of a negative solution of tolerance in Greek thought. An original soution to the problem of the extrapolation of tolerance to scientific knowledge was proposed based on the Duhem-Quine theses and conceptiion of background knowledge. In this way tolerance as a principle of mutual relations between different scientific positions gains an essential epistemological rationale and so an important argument for its own universal status. The group then went on to consider the ontological foundations for a positive solution of this problem, beginning with the work of Poincare and Reichenbach. The next aspect considered was the conceptual foundations of critical thinking, looking at the ideas of Karl Popper and St. Augustine and at the problem of the demarcation line between reasonable criticism and apologetic reasoning. Dogmatic and critical thinking in a political context were also considered, before an investigation of critical thinking's foundations. As logic is essential to critical thinking, the state of this discipline in Ukrainian and Russian higher education was assessed, together with the limits of formal-logical grounds for criticism, the role of informal logical as a basis for critical thinking today, dialectical logic as a foundation for critical thinking and the universality of the contemporary demand for criticism. The search for new foundations of critical thinking covered deconstructivism and critical hermeneutics, including the problem of the author. The relationship between tolerance and criticism was traced from the ancient world, both eastern and Greek, through the transitional community of the Renaissance to the industrial community (Locke and Mill) and the evolution of this relationship today when these are viewed not as moral virtues but as ordinary norms. Tolerance and criticism were discussed as complementary manifestations of human freedom. If the completeness of freedom were accepted it would be impossible to avoid recognition of the natural and legal nature of these manifestations and the group argue that critical tolerance is able to avoid dismissing such negative phenomena as the degradation of taste and manner, pornography, etc. On the basis of their work, the group drew up the syllabus of a course in "Logic with Elements of Critical Thinking, and of a special course on the "Problem of Tolerance".

Through the back door : Melungeon literacies and 21st century technologies

The Melungeons, a minority recognized in Southern Appalachia where they settled in the early 1800s, have mixed heritage—European, Mediterranean, Native American, and Sub-Saharan African. Their dark skin and distinctive features have marked them and been the cause of racial persecution both by custom and by law in Appalachia for two centuries. Their marginalization has led to an insider mentality, which I call a “literacy” of Melungeon-ness that affects every facet of their lives. Just a century ago, while specialized practices such as farming, preserving food, hunting, gathering, and distilling insured survival in the unforgiving mountain environment, few Melungeons could read or write. Required to pay property taxes and render military service, they were denied education, suffrage, and other legal rights. In the late 1890s visionary Melungeon leader Batey Collins invited Presbyterian homemissionaries to settle in one Tennessee Melungeon community where they established a church and built a school of unparalleled excellence. Educator-ministers Mary Rankin and Chester Leonard creatively reified the theories of Dewey, Montessori, and Rauschenbusch, but, despite their efforts, school literacy did not neutralize difference. Now, taking reading and writing for granted, Melungeons are exploring their identity by creating websites and participating in listserv discussions. These online expressions, which provide texts for rhetorical, semiotic, and socio-linguistic analysis, illustrate not solidarity but fragmentation on issues of origins and legitimacy. Armed with literacies of difference stemming from both nature and nurture, Melungeons are using literacy practices to embrace the difference they cannot escape.

El tercer espacio: cruce de culturas en la literatura de frontera

Favorecida por el proyecto económico y político de la globalización, es posible observar cómo, desde las últimas décadas del pasado siglo, se ha ido agudizando una tendencia a la hibridación que, si bien podríamos considerar casi innata de la condición humana, ha trascendido en nuestros días la mera enunciación retórica hasta llegar a impregnar casi todos los estratos de la cultura. En el campo de los estudios literarios este proceso de mixturación ha contribuido a generar una verdadera explosión de la llamada literatura de frontera, caracterizada no sólo por una mutación en las mentalidades de los sectores sociales y étnicos -desde los que se origina-, sino por profundos cambios en las mismas estructuras sociales, culturales y lingüísticas. Esta problemática pone en cuestión la homogeneidad y la esencialidad de la identidad cultural, pues es un fenómeno actual que nos remite, inevitablemente, a la complejidad de la identidad. Precisamente, podríamos hablar de deslizamientos que se van produciendo en los diferentes planos de las manifestaciones artísticas, tendiendo éstos a amalgamarse, a fundirse uno con otros, en un cruzamiento de líneas de fuga, de rupturas, que atraviesan ese nuevo espacio, el Tercer Espacio, donde los diferentes discursos se van hibridando unos con otros, rompiendo la imagen de unidad, la imagen unitaria y tradicional. Unidad que no existió nunca y que no puede existir de ningún modo, porque es una imagen acotada que se esfuma en el caótico tejido de lo vivo, en la conformación y evolución de la raza humana.