This research, while centered upon capital development, will concentrate its efforts on explaining the urgent contingencies behind its destructive aspects. If capitalism in order to advance must destroy the past, what are the sources and effects of this inexorable tension between creation and destruction? Moreover, what are the principles of this contradictory logic that determines destruction in order to make progress? This research will not investigate the totality of the destructive history behind capitalism. The time frame in analysis only covers the emergence of neo-liberalism at the beginning of the 1970s until today. This particular choice responds to the fact that neo-liberalism in itself is a strong example of the more destructive aspects of capitalist practice. I will not focus this research on a particular place, or a particular society. Instead, I will treat the topic from two theoretical perspectives, Joseph Schumpeter's notion of creative destruction and David Harvey's theory of geographical uneven development, along with his theorization of the spatial/temporal fix. Questions of space and development associated with capital will also integrate this research. What this research will show is that the inexorable confluence between creation and destruction in capitalist practices to counter the overwhelming perspective of capitalism, as a progressive force in social terms, is an eminently political task that requires, not only imagination, but also, the necessary connection between apparent unconnected issues in order to unravel the perplexities of contemporary political and social thought. / Master of Arts

Louis-David L.-Gagnon présente ses outils et ses techniques pour créer des contrastes au sein de ses tableaux. Issu du monde du graffiti et de la rénovation, il dévoile comment ces deux milieux l'ont influencé dans son art et met l'emphase sur le rôle du hasard et de l'assemblage dans sa pratique. / Louis-David L.-Gagnon presents his tools and techniques to create contrasts in his paintings. Coming from the world of graffiti and renovation, he reveals how these two environments influenced him in his art and emphasizes the role of chance and assemblage in his practice.

This thesis looks at the characteristics of Henry David Thoreau through his writings rather than through what other critics have written.

No description available.

All the biographical accounts of David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, are slight, and often very unsympathetic. Most have relied for factual information on his obituary, published in volume 99 of The Gentleman's Magazine. Malicious and distorted comments, particularly by Sir Walter Scott, have been responsible for the growth of a legend about Buchan's eccentricity, although the charge of absurd conduct was lodged against him in his own lifetime. It is interesting to note that a tradesman in Galashiels, near Buchan's former residence at Dryburgh Abbey, was found to talk about Buchan's patriotism, but at much greater length about his oddities, as recently as 1962. Those who could have given posterity a fair assessment of Buchan did not do so, and the way was left open for those who saw him only as vain and self-seeking. He was unlucky in living in the neighbourhood of Scott's house, Abbotsford, and because of this he has never had his due, even in the Border Country where he spent almost half his life. The cult of Scott flourishes there, but to Buchan there is no memorial. Whereas Abbotsford is much sought after, and is still in the possession of Scott's descendants, Dryburgh Abbey passed from Buchan's family and was given to the nation. Scott would probably have been amused had he known that the time would come when visitors to the Abbey would seek out his grave whilst that of Buchan goes unnoticed.

Cette thèse porte sur l’émergence, puis l’évolution, d’une esthétique de l’altérité dansle cinéma de David Lean à partir du Pont de la Rivière Kwaï (1957) et jusqu’à sondernier film réalisé, La Route des Indes (1984). Elle adopte également la perspectived’une réévaluation qualitative du cinéma du cinéaste britannique, en mettant au jourles fondements idéologiques qui expliquent sa marginalisation dans le contextefrançais.Cette thèse interroge la façon dont le cinéma de David Lean contribue aux définitionsanthropologiques et culturelles de l’identité occidentale, dans sa relation avecl’altérité orientale. Le rôle des représentations de genre, de race et de classe estexaminé en lien avec les techniques cinématographiques dans la perspective de faireapparaître l’historicité et l’ethnicité des modalités de la figuration.L’analyse détaillée des quatre films que David Lean a consacrés à la représentationde l’histoire impériale britannique s’accompagne d’une étude précise du contexte deproduction de chacun des films. De plus, les filiations cinématographiques sontprises en compte afin de situer les films dans une histoire des représentations del’altérité. Le rôle central de la relation coloniale et postcoloniale dans l’élaborationd’une esthétique de l’altérité est envisagé tout au long de la période étudiée.Cette thèse aboutit à la conclusion d’une esthétique de l’altérité structurée par lanécessité pour la civilisation occidentale d’intégrer la notion de crise dans unprocessus de reconfiguration permanent. Cette nécessité émerge avec lesindépendances et la décolonisation. Elle s’impose à partir des années 1970 avecl’autonomie des sujets dominés qui composaient jusque-là l’Orient imaginaire / The topic of this thesis is the emergence and the subsequent evolution of anaesthetics of otherness in the cinema of David Lean, starting with The Bridge on theriver Kwai (1957) and up to A passage to India (1984), the very last film he made.This thesis seeks as well a qualitative reassessment of the British filmmaker's work,unearthing thereby the ideological factors behind his marginalization in the contextof French critical discourse.This thesis explores the ways in which David Lean's work contributes to theanthropological and cultural definition of Western identity in its relationship withOriental otherness. I examine the role played by gender, race and classrepresentations in relationship with cinema techniques in view of shedding light onthe historicity and ethnicity of modes of figuration.The detailed analysis of the four David Lean films taking as their topic therepresentation of British imperial history is complemented by a meticulous study ofeach film's context of production. Furthermore, I consider cinematic genealogies soas to situate the films within a history of the representation of otherness. I take intoaccount the central role played by colonial and postcolonial relationships in thedevelopment of an aesthetics of otherness throughout the historical period underconsideration.This thesis reaches the following conclusion regarding an aesthetics of otherness :namely, that it is structured by the necessity for Western civilization of incorporatingthe notion of crisis in a process of constant reconfiguration. Emerging with liberationmovements and decolonization, this necessity imposes itself from the 1970s onwardsfollowing the independence of dominated subjects who, up to then, had been makingup an imaginary East

This thesis investigates cinema’s attempts to engage in a dialogue with the trace of the physical body. My concern is with the on-screen presentation of the body rather than its treatment as a representation of gender, sexuality, race, age, or class. I examine specifically The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980), Crash (Cronenberg, 1996), Attenberg (Tsangari, 2010), Taxidermia (Pálfi, 2006), and Sokurov’s family trilogy (Mother and Son, 1997; Father and Son, 2003; and Alexandra, 2007). The recurring tropes in these seven films include references to the medical gaze (both objective and objectifying) and haptic visuality which privileges sensual, close engagement with the image of the material object. I consider the medical and the haptic as metaphors for depictions of the body in cinema. To develop my analysis, I draw on the works of Michel Foucault, Laura U. Marks and Vivian Sobchack amongst others. I conclude that the discussed films, preoccupied with images of corporeal forms, criticise cinema’s conventional treatment of the body as simply a vessel for a goal-driven character and portray bodies which appear to consciousness in their own right.

This dissertation studies a group of contemporary Anglo-American novelists who contribute to the development of a new humanism after the postmodern critique of Euro-American culture. As such, these writers respond to positions in twentieth-century philosophy that converge in a call for silence which has an ontological as well as ethical valence: as a way of rigorously thinking the ‘outside’ to language, it avoids charges of metaphysical inauthenticity; as an ethical stance in the wake of the Shoah, it eschews a complicity with the reifications of modern culture. How to reconcile this post-metaphysical promise with the politico-aesthetic inadequacy of speechlessness is the central question for this nexus of novelists—David Markson, Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith—at the center of which the study locates Wallace as a key figure of contemporary literature. By reconstructing the conversation among these authors, this dissertation argues that the nexus writers turn to indirect means of representation that do justice to the demand for silence in matters of metaphysics, but also gesture past it in the development of a neo-romantic aesthetics that invites the humanist category of the self back onto the scene after its dismissal by late postmodernism. The key to such indirection lies in an aporetic method that inspires explorations of metaphysical assumptions by seducing readers to an ambiguous site of aesthetic wonder; in conversation with a range of contemporary philosophers, the dissertation defines this affective site as a place of proximity, rather than absorption or detachment, which balances out the need for metaphysical distance with the productive desire for a fullness of experience. Such proximate aesthetic experiences continue the work of ‘doing metaphysics’ in post-metaphysical times by engaging our habitual responsiveness to the categories involved. Hence the novels discussed here stage limit cases of reason such as the unknowable world, the unreachable other, the absence of the self, and the unstable hierarchy between irony and sincerity: Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress imagines skepticism as literal abandonment and reminds us of our metaphysical indebtedness to a desired object/world; Ellis’s American Psycho shows the breakdown of communication due to a similarly skeptical vision of human interaction and presents a violence that tries to force a response from the desired subject/person; Wallace’s Infinite Jest creates a large canvas on which episodes of metaphysical and literal ‘stuckness’ afford possibilities for becoming human; Smith’s The Autograph Man, finally, pays attention to gestural language at the breaking point of materialism and theology, nature and culture, tragedy and comedy. / Graduate / 2020-08-01

[pt] Esta dissertação discute, a partir de uma leitura dos trabalhos de Adam Smith em história intelectual e ética, a visão deste filósofo escocês do século XVIII sobre a natureza da atividade humana. Sugere-se que esta filosofia seja profundamente marcada por uma consciência aguda da imperfeição e finitude humanas. Intenta-se, porém, mostrar que o pensamento de Smith é também um esforço de reconciliação com esta imperfeição essencial. Toda a reflexão smithiana está voltada para a tarefa de demonstrar de que maneira é possível ao homem, a despeito de suas limitações, manter uma existência regular e harmoniosa e avançar do ponto de vista cognitivo, moral e material. De acordo com a visão de Smith, o espírito humano é mobilizado por um impulso espontâneo e desinteressado para a realização de ordem, harmonia e beleza nas diferentes esferas de sua atividade. No entanto, embora o espírito tenda naturalmente à regularidade, uma situação absolutamente simétrica nunca se realiza, em função da própria imperfeição do Homem. E é certo que assim seja, pois uma tal situação não seria nem mesmo suportável por criaturas humanas. O primeiro capítulo tem seu foco analítico em um texto de juventude de Smith, The History of Astronomy, pondo-o em diálogo com o pensamento de David Hume. Discute-se de que maneira Smith, assumindo a teoria da imaginação de Hume, se insere também no projeto humeano de uma ciência da natureza humana. O segundo capítulo envolve uma discussão da obra de Smith em ética, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, e de seu conceito central, a simpatia. / [en] This dissertation deals with Adam Smith`s view on the nature of human activity, proposing an interpretation of this eighteenth century Scottish philosopher`s works on intellectual history and ethics. It is suggested that his philosophy is marked by a keen awareness of human imperfection and finitude. It demonstrates that Adam Smith`s thought is also, however, an effort of reconciliation with this essential imperfection. Smith`s reflection is directed to the task of showing how it would be possible for mankind, notwithstanding its limitations, to maintain a regular and harmonious existence and to advance from a cognitive, moral and material point of view. According to Adam Smith`s view, the human spirit is moved by a spontaneous and disinterested impulse to the realization of order, harmony and beauty in the different spheres of its activity. Nonetheless, although the spirit is naturally order- seeking, an absolutely symmetrical situation is never actualized because of the very imperfection of mankind. Such a situation wouldn`t even be bearable to human creatures. The first chapter has its analytical focus on an early text from Adam Smith`s called The History of Astronomy, and puts it into dialogue with the thought of David Hume. The subject here is how Smith, adopting Hume`s theory of imagination, partakes in the Humean project of a science of human nature. The second chapter discusses Adam Smith`s work on ethics, The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, and its central concept, sympathy.

Submitted by Angela Maria de Oliveira (amolivei@uepg.br) on 2017-11-09T10:26:51Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação Rhuan Scomacao.pdf: 1625156 bytes, checksum: 1f46cb17bb09abc9bd7cc86048711801 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-11-09T10:26:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação Rhuan Scomacao.pdf: 1625156 bytes, checksum: 1f46cb17bb09abc9bd7cc86048711801 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-29 / Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar três obras do escritor estadunidense Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a partir do efeito do horror cósmico no leitor. As narrativas foram escolhidas segundo o grau de influência nos leitores e na forma de percepção do elemento cósmico em seus enredos. Para isso, tanto “O Chamado de Cthulhu” (1926), como “Nas Montanhas da Loucura” (1931) e “A Sombra Vinda do Tempo” (1935) apresentam características que retratam o horror cósmico em diversas escalas de percepção, partindo da suposição do efeito cósmico pelos narradores, até alcançar o contato físico e intelectual entre os narradores e os seres fantásticos. Quanto à análise, utilizamos das teorias sobre a narrativa fantástica e sobre a relação dela com a realidade do leitor. David Roas (2014), com seu livro A ameaça do fantástico, constitui a maior parte do arcabouço teórico, em específico a sua tese sobre a desestabilização do real provocada pela obra fantástica. Por sua vez, Sunand Tryambak Joshi (1990; 2001; 2010) apresenta uma fortuna crítica sobre Lovecraft e sua obra que não só possibilita uma imersão profunda na estética do escritor, como também auxilia na construção dos caminhos teóricos escolhidos para essa dissertação. Por fim, o trabalho discute o horror cósmico no diálogo com o leitor, analisando como o efeito cósmico é recebido, além de elencar os elementos de cada narrativa que nos levam a acreditar que o medo cósmico, tão empregado por Lovecraft em suas narrativas, é uma das heranças mais prodigiosas de seus discursos para a narrativa fantástica. / This work has the goal to analyze three literary works by the American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, starting from the effect of the cosmic horror on the reader. The narratives have been chosen based on the level of influence they have upon the readers and on the form of the perception of the cosmic element on their plots. Therefore, “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926), as well as “At the Mountains of Madness” (1931) and “The Shadow Out of Time” (1935) present characteristics that portray the cosmic horror on many scales of perception, beginning from the supposition of the cosmic effect by the narrators until reach the physical and intellectual contact between the narrators and the fantastic beings. Regarding the analysis, we used the theories about the fantastic narrative and its relationship with the reader’s reality. David Roas (2014), with his book “A ameaça do fantástico”, built most of the theoretical framework, specifically his thesis about the destabilization of the reality caused by the fantastic work. On the other hand, Sunand Tryambak Joshi (1990; 2001; 2010) presents a critical fortune about Lovecraft and his work tha not only allows a deep immerdion on the writer’s aesthetics, but also helps to build the theoretical paths chosen to this dissertation. Finally, the work discusses the cosmic horror on the dialogue with the reader, analyzing how the cosmic effect is received, in addition to list the elements of each narrative that lead us to believe that the cosmic fear, largely used on Lovecraft’s narratives, is one of the most prodigious inheritances of his speeches to the fantastic narratives.