[pt] Esta dissertação apresenta o estudo de caso de uma marca brasileira de acessórios de moda, a Chilli Beans. A análise utiliza o modelo Projeto/Manifestação de identidade de marca proposto por Andrea Semprini (2010), baseado no ferramental teórico-metodológico da semiótica discursiva de linha francesa, ainda pouco explorado na pesquisa de mercado no Brasil. Concebido para o contexto pós-moderno, o modelo compara a proposta de identidade enunciada pelos gestores da marca com a identidade de marca percebida pelo público a partir das manifestações desta, intencionando verificar a compatibilidade entre ambas. O objetivo deste trabalho é, portanto, explicitar as aproximações e afastamentos entre o projeto de marca proposto pelos gestores da Chilli Beans e as interpretações das manifestações da marca pelos consumidores. A metodologia aplicada consiste em pesquisa qualitativa envolvendo entrevistas com os gestores da marca e com o público atingido por ela. Esse material é, então, analisado conforme a proposta de Semprini (2010). Os resultados da pesquisa indicam que há correspondência entre o que a marca se propõe a ser e a forma como o público a entende. Entretanto, algumas manifestações específicas da marca atenuam essa relação. A identificação dessas fragilidades permite aos gestores da marca a adaptação de sua proposição de sentido ou da maneira como apresentam suas manifestações em prol do estabelecimento de uma marca mais consistente. / [en] This paper presents the case of a Brazilian fashion accessories brand, Chilli Beans. The analysis assumed the Project/ Manifestation model of brand identity, proposed by Andrea Semprini (2010), which is based on the theoretical and methodological tools of the French approach to discursive-semiotics, that are not very explored in Brazilian market research yet. Designed for the postmodern context, the model compares the proposal of brand identity - set out by its managers - with the brand identity as it is observed by the public through the manifestation of the brand, and what is intended is to check the compatibility between them. The goal of this study is, therefore, explicit approaches and departures between the project proposed by brand managers and the public’s interpretations of brand manifestations. The methodology consists of qualitative research involving interviews with brand executives and the public affected by it. This material is then analyzed according to the proposed by Semprini (2010). The study results indicate correlation between what the brand is intended to be and how the public appreciates it. However, some specific brand manifestations attenuate this relationship. Identifying those weaknesses enables brand managers to adapt their meaning proposition or the way they present their manifestations, in order to establishing a more consistent brand.

Yeung, Yang. / "August 2004." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 314-321). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

For centuries we have taken for granted Aristotle's assertion that fiction must encourage emotional identification by representing life realistically. With the development of a more pluralistic society, Postmodernist writiers have come to question that assumption. Having repudiated our ancestor's notions of identity, these writers create stories whose sole purpose is to comment on other stories. However, as some feminist critics have shown us, we must each have an identity in order to have the collaborative society that is the Postmodernist's goal. Therefore, the notion that a story must make a sensory impression on us and stand on its own as a story in itself is just as valid today as it was in the past.

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This paper argues that narrative techniques in Absalom, Absalom! demonstrate Faulkners anticipation of postmodern thought and style. Similar techniques in Christopher Nolans film Memento serve to highlight how both writer and director confound the notion of master narrative by disrupting chronology and raising questions about the reliability of the narrators in each work. Nolan orders all events of the film in reverse while threading chronologically ordered events throughout to tell the story of Lennys murder investigation. Faulkner likewise uses "dischronology," such as flashbacks to tell the story of Thomas Sutpen. Both Faulkner and Nolan provide key information through questionable narrators at strategic times to manipulate reader's/viewer's thoughts and opinions about specific characters. Nolan and Faulkner use several narrators, none of whom witnessed all events, to tell the stories of each work. A close examination of these similar narrative techniques creates a parallel between two otherwise unrelated works. More importantly, such an examination shows that although Faulkner was a modernist writer, his work Absalom, Absalom! anticipated a postmodern era. To provide additional support for the argument that Absalom, Absalom! anticipates a postmodernist understanding of Narrativity, this paper will offer a perspective that incorporates ideas of postmodern thought and narratological studies from Seymour Chatman, Gerald Prince, and Julia Kristeva. It will also draw from ideas of such Faulknerian scholars as Donald Kartiganer, Michael Millgate, and David Minter. Against the backdrop such scholarship provides a comparison of the narrative techniques of Absalom, Absalom! and Memento enhances the postmodernist understanding of historical "truth" as necessarily partial, fragmented, and subjective.

Women are drawing together the concepts of space, style,and medium and using these concepts collectively as a foundation for a new discursive tradition in the online autobiography. This dissertation, positioned in postmodern feminism, draws on a variety of disciplines to argue the development or evolution of a new women's discourse. While a broad base of material exists which acknowledges the presence of women's discourse (formed by combining women's writing and women's genres), very little information explores its evolution, particularly in/on the new medium of the World Wide Web (WWW). A combination of extant social and literary theories supports the idea that women are developing a new e-criture feminine via the online diary. Both the virtual medium and the historically female genre echo the very tenets of this new writing style: privacy, individuality, and a lack of (restraining) conventions. This dissertation will contextualize the phenomenon of women publishing online diaries in the poststructuralist ideologies of Woolf, DuPlessis, and Cixous. Following an explication of women's space, women's style, and women's medium, this dissertation will demonstrate that women successfully concatenate these concepts in their online journals, resulting in the creation of a new feminine discourse. The goal of this project is to provide readers with a theoretical explication of this new discursive tradition. Certainly, a number of critical and academic works exist which address the “gendering” of the written medium, the phenomenon of women publishing online, the importance of women developing their own voices. What is missing from academic dialogue, however, is the assertion that these individual elements unite to create a new discursive tradition that is at once literary and rhetorical. Using the work of Woolf, DuPlessis, and Cixous, this dissertation presents, explicates, and ties together these elements in an effort to introduce and theorize the significance of this new discursive tradition within the context of postmodern feminism/s. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate that women are experiencing the organic concatenation of the concepts of space (Woolf), style (DuPlessis), and medium (Cixous) as they relate to the Web in order to develop an important new women’s discursive tradition.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the often tumultuous relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and democracy. Nietzsche has always had an antipathy towards democracy. Nietzsche has claimed that democracy espouses a will to equality which levels the greatest men along with the most average men. For Nietzsche, his Ubermenschen must emerge from the muddle of mediocrity and similitude in order to set themselves apart from the herd. The herd is more than happy to live in a democratic society since no one will be rendered better or greater than anyone else. I argue that Nietzsche does not realize democracy's many assets. Liberal democracy could very well be the best political springboard for his Ubermenschen. For Nietzsche, higher culture emerges in spite of modernity's leveling snare. These great men engage in contests. They create their own rules and values. They say what they like. In a fascist society, these men would never be allowed to do as they please. One benefit of liberal democracy is that we are given the right to dissent. We are given the right to express ourselves. Democracy could facilitate the emergence of the elusive Ubermenschen. These are men who transcend the average and the ordinary. In this dissertation I begin by exploring Nietzsche's cultural criticisms. He devotes a great deal of energy condemning modernity and its leveling tendencies. Out of the cultural morass that is modernity comes this higher culture of which Nietzsche speaks highly. In chapter two, I argue that higher culture must begin with the individual. I will examine what it takes for a man to be able to transcend his mediocre culture. In chapter three, I examine the contemporary political climate and try to determine whether these great individuals could emerge in such a climate. Finally, in chapter four I examine which political system could best help this culture emerge. I argue that liberal democracy is the best environment for these higher men.

The overarching goal of this study is to suggest that the essay as a genre, although seeming to manifest the epistemological conceptions of the modern, possesses certain qualities from its origin that justify and strengthen its position in the paradigm of the postmodern condition. It is my argument that misconceptions about such qualities have led to its mistreatment by writing teachers in accordance with two dominant pedagogical approaches, formalism (current-traditionalism) and romanticism (expressivism). My argument requires a detailed examination of the political, historical and cultural reality that cultivated and nurtured the genre of the essay, and a major focus of my study is on the way Montaigne conceived of the new mode of writing as his response to the new social realities of the sixteenth century, an age marked by discoveries and inventions. To justify this approach, I consider works by composition theorists who promote an agenda of critical literacy, scholarly works on Montaigne's essays, as well as various relevant works on postmodernism and literary theory. Perhaps more importantly, I look back to the chaotic, unpredictable, and skeptical mentality of the sixteenth century and attempt to draw connections between that time period and the present, as our present postmodern era is also marked by major shifts of conceptions about reality, knowledge, authority, and the self. From this framework, I indicate connections can be drawn between the two revolutionary ages, both marked by explosion of new knowledge and dissipation of authority and certainty. It is my proposition that the essay, arising from the need to question traditions and to adapt to new emerging realities, possesses qualities--explorative, skeptical, and dialogical--that procure a valid position in the ongoing questioning and challenging of the Modern by the Postmodern. Finally, I examine how essay has been and continues to be taught just for its formalistic merits and ignored for its epistemological, aesthetic, and philosophical values, an examination that serves to repudiate the wrongful relegation and dismissal of the essay and to establish a justification of not only the literary merits, but also the pedagogical values of the essay.

This thesis explores the relationships between reality and fiction on Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novels about Captain Alatriste. Four out of six novels about this character will be discussed and the analysis of this work will focus on how the author uses historical data and fiction not only to promote a new narrative in Spain, but also as a way to re-evaluate and challenge history. The texts which are analyzed in this thesis, El Capitán Alatriste, Limpieza de sangre, El sol de Breda and El oro del Rey center around a common main character who depicts a Spanish soldier in the Seventeenth Century. This thesis analyzes the works from a postmodern historical point of view and evaluates the reference of the novels in relation to the literature of the Golden Age. The analysis of the intertextuality of Pérez-Reverte's narrative can be found within this paper as well as an investigation of his approach to postmodernism through a historical point of view. The thesis is divided in three sections. The first section covers an overview of Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste novels and his interpretation of the Spanish Golden Age. Section two explores the postmodern expression of Pérez-Reverte's works through the conception of the historical novel. This section is based on the interpretations of Umberto Eco and Jean François Lyotard. The latter part of the thesis examines the mix between fiction and history and studies the author as a Spanish contemporary writer who uses a particular narrative to represent social, political and cultural changes of Spain during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

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