Leituras e imagens do 11 de setembro: reavaliações da história em Falling Man (2007), de Don DeLillo e em Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), de Michael Moore

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Falling Man: A literatura em busca de possíveis significados para um espaço vazio

September 11 has originated a wide range of artistic manifestations which have not only searched for plausible explanations for the tragedy, but also tried to review the events. In this sense, this paper aims at showing how a novel reevaluates this episode. The attacks made the United States experience a strong sense of vulnerability triggering reactions from the American government, whose quick action was translated into a new national security strategy associated with the war on terror. This paper analyzes the narrative strategies employed by the American author Don DeLillo in his novel Falling Man (2007) in order to reevaluate that tragedy. The debate of the topics is based on texts concerning the relationship between literature and history, postmodern fiction and issues on terrorism. This study contributes to enrich the discussion related to the events that led to the catastrophe and its aftermath, examining characters and groups linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks, revealing multiple truths subjected to social, ideological and historical conditions.

Players, Mao II e Falling Man: O terror em três versões (publicado em 2014)

This paper aims at analyzing the different approaches to terror in the novels Players (1977), Mao II (1991) and Falling Man (2007), by the American writer Don DeLillo. In Players, terror is shown as something attractive and exciting to a character who leads a very tedious personal and professional life; in Mao II, it is connected to the kidnapping of a poet and the text brings up relevant debates focusing on the contrast related to the power of novelists and terrorists in society; and in Falling Man, the author reviews the tragedy of September 11, in an attempt to try to understand the reasons why the attacks happened. The novels show terrorist actions connected to historical processes and also to the present form of capitalism and globalization. Theoretical texts by Bauman (1998), Eagleton (2005), Freitas (1989), Fraser (2000) will be used to discuss the issues addressed in this paper.

Falling Man: A Literatura em busca de possíveis significados para um espaço vazio

September 11 has originated a wide range of artistic manifestations which have not only searched for plausible explanations for the tragedy, but also tried to review the events. In this sense, this paper aims at showing how a novel reevaluates this episode. The attacks made the United States experience a strong sense of vulnerability, triggering reactions from the American government, whose quick action was translated into a new national security strategy, associated with the war on terror. This paper analyzes the narrative strategies employed by the American author Don DeLillo in his novel Falling Man (2007) in order to reevaluate that tragedy. The debate of the topics is based on texts concerning the relationship between literature and history, postmodern fiction and issues on terrorism. This study contributes to enrich the discussion related to the events that led to the catastrophe and its aftermath, examining characters and groups linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks, revealing multiple truths subjected to social, ideological and historical conditions.

The Trauma Towers: Dimensions of Trauma in 9/11 Literature

The topic of this dissertation is the aspects of trauma and reaction to the traumatic experience that can be found in 9/11 literature. The research engages in a comparative analysis of five books that can be categorised as 9/11 literature, which means that the events of 9/11 are central in the novels and are a recurrent theme. The books have been written by authors of different nationalities: "Extremely Loud & Incredibily Close" by J. S. Foer, "Falling Man" by D. DeLillo, "Windows on the World" by F. Beigbeder, "Saturday" by I. McEwan and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by M. Hamid. The characters have either experienced the attacks personally or their lives have been largely influenced by the event. In either case, the protagonist has been traumatised by the tragedy. Therefore, in this study two different fields are fused together – the field of comparative literature and that of trauma studies.

Death Threat Letters: Allegories of American Authorship in the Age of Terrorism

This dissertation examines novels that use terrorism to allegorize the threatened position of the literary author in contemporary culture. Allegory is a term that has been differently understood over time, but which has consistently been used by writers to articulate and construct their roles as authors. In the novels I look at, the terrorist challenge to authorship results in multiple deployments of allegory, each differently illustrating the way that allegory is used and authorship constructed in the contemporary American novel. Don DeLillo’s Mao II (1991), first puts terrorists and authors in an oppositional pairing. The terrorist’s ability to traffic in spectacle is presented as indicative of the author’s fading importance in contemporary culture and it is one way that terrorism allegorizes threats to authorship. In Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock (1993), the allegorical pairing is between the text of the novel and outside texts – newspaper reports, legal cases, etc. – that the novel references and adapts in order to bolster its own narrative authority. Richard Powers’s Plowing the Dark (1999) pairs the story of an imprisoned hostage, craving a single book, with employees of a tech firm who are creating interactive, virtual reality artworks. Focusing on the reader’s experience, Powers’s novel posits a form of authorship that the reader can take into consideration, but which does not seek to control the experience of the text. Finally, I look at two of Paul Auster’s twenty-first century novels, Travels in the Scriptorium (2007) and Man in the Dark (2008), to suggest that the relationship between representations of authors and terrorists changed after 9/11. Auster’s author-figures forward an ethics of authorship whereby novels can use narrative to buffer readers against the portrayal of violent acts in a culture that is suffused with traumatizing imagery.

Death Threat Letters: Allegories of American Authorship in the Age of Terrorism

This dissertation examines novels that use terrorism to allegorize the threatened position of the literary author in contemporary culture. Allegory is a term that has been differently understood over time, but which has consistently been used by writers to articulate and construct their roles as authors. In the novels I look at, the terrorist challenge to authorship results in multiple deployments of allegory, each differently illustrating the way that allegory is used and authorship constructed in the contemporary American novel. Don DeLillo’s Mao II (1991), first puts terrorists and authors in an oppositional pairing. The terrorist’s ability to traffic in spectacle is presented as indicative of the author’s fading importance in contemporary culture and it is one way that terrorism allegorizes threats to authorship. In Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock (1993), the allegorical pairing is between the text of the novel and outside texts – newspaper reports, legal cases, etc. – that the novel references and adapts in order to bolster its own narrative authority. Richard Powers’s Plowing the Dark (1999) pairs the story of an imprisoned hostage, craving a single book, with employees of a tech firm who are creating interactive, virtual reality artworks. Focusing on the reader’s experience, Powers’s novel posits a form of authorship that the reader can take into consideration, but which does not seek to control the experience of the text. Finally, I look at two of Paul Auster’s twenty-first century novels, Travels in the Scriptorium (2007) and Man in the Dark (2008), to suggest that the relationship between representations of authors and terrorists changed after 9/11. Auster’s author-figures forward an ethics of authorship whereby novels can use narrative to buffer readers against the portrayal of violent acts in a culture that is suffused with traumatizing imagery.

Parable of the Blind: man falling into ditch

Pieter Bruegel the Elder; tempera on canvas

Oxidative and nonoxidative glucose metabolism following graded doses of oral glucose in man.

The oxidative and nonoxidative glucose metabolism represent the two major mechanisms of the utilization of a glucose load. Eight normal subjects were administered oral loads of 50, 100 and 150 g glucose and gas exchange measurements were performed for eight hours by means of computerized continuous indirect calorimetry. The glycemic peaks were almost identical with all three doses with a rise to between 141 and 147 mg/dl at 60 min. The fall back to basal level was reached later with the high than with the low glucose doses. The glucose oxidation rate rose to values between 223 and 253 mg/min after the three glucose doses, but while falling immediately after the peak at 120 min following the 50 g load, the glucose oxidation rate remained at its maximum rate until 210 min for the 100 g glucose load and plateaued up to 270 min for the 150 g glucose dose. The oxidation rates then fell gradually to reach basal levels at 270, 330 and 420 min according to the increasing size of the load. Altogether 55 +/- 3 g glucose were oxidized during the 8 hours following the 50 g glucose load, 75 +/- 3 g after the 100 g load and 80 +/- 5 g after the 150 g load. The nonoxidative glucose disposal, which corresponds essentially to glucose storage, varied according to the size of the glucose load, with uptakes of 20 +/- 1, 60 +/- 1 and 110 +/- 1 g glucose 180 min after the 50, 100 and 150 g glucose loads respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Falling sheet envelope method for non-destructive testing time-dependent signals

In this work, an algorithm to compute the envelope of non-destructive testing (NDT) signals is proposed. This method allows increasing the speed and reducing the memory in extensive data processing. Also, this procedure presents advantage of preserving the data information for physical modeling applications of time-dependent measurements. The algorithm is conceived to be applied for analyze data from non-destructive testing. The comparison between different envelope methods and the proposed method, applied to Magnetic Bark Signal (MBN), is studied. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Performance of a solar energy powered falling film evaporator with film promoter

A solar energy powered failing film evaporator with film promoter was developed for concentrating diluted solutions (industrial effluents). The procedure proposed here does not emit CO(2), making it a viable alternative to the method of concentrating solutions that uses vapor as a heat source and releases CO(2) from burning fuel oil in a furnace, in direct opposition to the carbon reduction agreement established by the Kyoto protocol. This novel device consists of the following components: a flat plate solar collector with adjustable inclination, a film promoter (adhering to the collector), a liquid distributor, a concentrate collector. and accessories. The evaporation rate of the device was found to be affected both by the inclination of the collector and by the feed flow. The meteorological variables cannot be controlled, but were monitored constantly to ascertain the behavior of the equipment in response to the variations occurring throughout the day. Higher efficiencies were attained when the inclination of the collector was adjusted monthly, showing up to 36.4% higher values than when the collector remained in a fixed position. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

HJV Hemochromatosis, Iron Overload, and Hypogonadism in a Brazilian Man: Treatment with Phlebotomy and Deferasirox

Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil[2008/54131-0]

Engineering from within: Habibie the man and Indonesia’s reformasi

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, even now, remains a deeply puzzling figure for scholars and commentators concerned with matters Indonesian, Western and Indonesian alike.