La thèse interroge la façon dont les conceptions linguistiques – explicites comme implicites – des surréalistes ont conféré au langage la fonction d’opérateur principal d’un bouleversement de l’ordre établi. Dans leur entreprise de subversion de la pensée dominante d'après-guerre, les surréalistes se sont emparés du langage pour transformer la société : un nouvel emploi du langage devait libérer la pensée d'entraves héritées, et émanciper l'homme, afin de « changer la vie », de « transformer le monde » selon les mots d’ordre de Rimbaud et de Marx. Cette « Révolution Surréaliste » s’est dotée du langage comme arme première pour affirmer le refus des normes, s’extraire du déjà-pensé, et laisser dépérir les vieilles représentations véhiculées par le langage, qui bornent l’espace mental et portent atteinte aux capacités créatrices de l’imagination. Il s’agit de perturber les structures par trop évidentes de la langue, d’intégrer de l’hétérogénéité dans la parole pour empêcher la pensée dominante de s’immiscer dans la chaîne linguistique. Non pas changer le matériau de la langue, fondement de notre pensée, mais changer l’usage que l’on en fait, pour instituer un nouveau rapport au monde. C’est donc l’articulation des ambitions politiques et poétiques qui est la pierre angulaire de notre recherche sur cette affirmation éclatante du pouvoir des mots sur les choses, et sur la quête inébranlable d’une pensée libre, puissante, qu’a constitué l’aventure surréaliste. / This thesis questions the way the Surrealists' linguistic conceptions, both explicit and implicit, gave language a central role in the movement's attempt to overthrow the established order. With the goal of subverting post-war mainstream thinking, the Surrealists seized language to transform society : through a new use of language, thought was to be freed from inherited obstacles and men were to be emancipated, so as to « change life » and « transform the world », as proclaimed in Rimbaud's and Marx's respective slogans. This « surrealist revolution » used language as its main weapon to refuse norms, reject all preconceptions and undermine the old representations conveyed by language, as they were seen to constrict mental space and bar creative apprehensions. The aim was to disrupt conventional linguistic patterns, to give speech heterogeneity and thus to prevent mainstream thinking from intruding into the linguistic chain, not by changing the material of language as the basis of our thinking, but by changing the way we use it, in order to transform our relationship to the world. The articulation of those political and poetical ambitions is the cornerstone of our research work, which explores the Surrealists' quest for unrestrained, free thought, founded on their strong belief in the power of words over things.

Ce mémoire en recherche-création comporte deux parties : une création — un court métrage de fiction d’une quinzaine de minutes — et une réflexion écrite — un texte d’une cinquantaine de pages — autour d’une problématique générique. La plupart des historiens parlent d’un certain « épuisement » du western autour des années soixante-dix et quatre-vingt. Pourtant, le genre fait un retour dans le cinéma contemporain, mais sous une forme déplacée et renouvelée. Nous nous demanderons comment et pourquoi le genre du western revient aujourd’hui, sous quelle forme, et quel est le sens de cette reprise. La réflexion écrite reviendra d’abord sur le fonctionnement du système générique, pour se concentrer ensuite sur le genre du western et notamment sur le paysage de l’Ouest et le personnage du cowboy. Finalement, à l’occasion d’une étude de trois films exemplaires — The Three Burial of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005), et No Country for Old Men (Joel et Ethan Coen, 2007) et Don’t Come Knocking (Wim Wenders, 2005) — nous nous intéresserons plus particulièrement à la tension qui est construite dans les westerns contemporains entre l’imaginaire traditionnel du genre et le réalisme actuel. Réalisé en parallèle, le court métrage de fiction a pour ambition d’incarner ces problématiques examinées dans la partie écrite. / This research is in two parts: a fifteen minutes short fiction film, and a fifty page reflection on a genre-related set of issues. Most historians agree that there was a certain "exhaustion" of the western genre in the seventies and eighties. Yet, this genre is reappearing in modern cinema, in a renewed and repositioned form. We will try to understand how and why the western genre is making a come-back, by examining the form and meaning of this resumption. This dissertation will start by reviewing the workings of the generic system, before focusing on the western genre, specifically western scenery and cowboy iconography. Finally, we will study three films that are exponents of the genre: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005), No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007), and Don’t Come Knocking (Wim Wenders, 2005). We will concentrate particularly on the tension created in modern films between the traditional conception of the western genre and contemporary realism. Produced at the same time, the short fiction film aspires to embody the issues explored in the text.

This essay analyses Thomas Pynchon’s novel The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) in relation to postmodern literary theory, specifically the concepts of hyperreality and imaginary stations. In Simulacra and Simulation (1981), Jean Baudrillard proposes that the Disneyland theme park in California is an imaginary station that conceals the fact that it is the world outside of Disneyland that is hyperreal. These ideas were developed further in relation to California by Umberto Eco in Travels from Hyperreality (1986). Baudrillard’s model is applied in this essay to the housing development of Fangoso Lagoons in The Crying of Lot 49. By analysing the mediums through which it is portrayed, how it is described and the events that occur there, Fangoso Lagoons is found to be similar to Baudrillard’s example of Disneyland because it is presented as an amazing, fantastic and bizarre spectacle. However, the true hyperreality lies outside of the development, in the novel’s semi-fictional California. This essay argues that Fangoso Lagoons is presented as hyperreal, similar to Baudrillard’s example of Disneyland or Umberto Eco’s example of Hearst Castle, but that it is in fact an imaginary station. As Baudrillard and Eco propose, the purpose of the imaginary station is to make the world outside appear as real through contrast. The imaginary station achieves this by feeding reality energy to its hyperreal surroundings.

CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Department of Electronic Culture and Semiotics Bc. Jakub Turčan Phenomenon Almodóvar (The Interdigitation of "Small Worlds" in the Work of Pedro Almodóvar) Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Josef Fulka, Ph.D. Thesis Abstract Prague 2013 Abstract The paper focuses on the problem of authorship by means of an in-depth analysis of the film work of the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. The analysis is preceded by setting the author's work in the context of its origin, introduction of its so far existing content, as well as the concepts this work employs. Due to the hypertextual character of this postmodern oeuvre, the study is based on the concept of small worlds by Umberto Eco, hence the worlds of fiction with limited content in comparison to the actual world. The complete film work is perceived as a self- contained, yet within its character an ever open Text. The interdigitation of its small worlds is understood as a series of intratextual references, however the work also monitors its intertextual and, as a blend of these two, the transtextual content. Presenting the directors unique signature, combining several known approaches of the film creation with his own style- constituting elements, the analysis adduces the auteurist character - first described by the film...

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[pt] Esta pesquisa propõe uma discussão sobre a materialização dos marcadores de gênero no uso de corpo e objetos para construção da figura feminina. Para tal, procuramos entender a performance de drag queens como um processo de concepção de personagem que objetiva representar o feminino. Esta representação se dá tanto nos gestos, expressão corporal e modificações temporárias na forma física, quanto no uso de objetos, adereços e vestuário tipicamente marcados pelo gênero. Buscamos compreender como estes estereótipos se apresentam no imaginário e de que forma a cultura material dá corpo a eles. Trabalhamos com a hipótese de que a atribuição de significado às formas, materiais e cores utilizados no design de produtos demonstra sua contribuição para a (re)produção das diferenças de gênero com as quais a cultura material trabalha. A reprodução de estereótipos não é idealizada conscientemente, mas favorece a manutenção de um sistema de diferenciação pautada em ideais que possuem origens socioculturais. / [en] This research proposes a discussion about the materialization of gender stereotypes on the body and in the use of objects to construct a female figure. For this, we try to understand the performance of drag queens as a process of character conception that aims to represent the feminine. This representation occurs in gestures, body expression and temporary modifications in physical form, as well as in the use of objects, props and clothing typically marked by gender. We seek to understand how these stereotypes present themselves in the imaginary and in what way material culture gives shape to them. We work with the hypothesis that the attribution of meaning to the forms, materials and colors used in product design demonstrates its contribution to the (re) production of the gender differences with which the material culture works. The reproduction of stereotypes is not consciously idealized, but favors the maintenance of a system of differentiation based on ideals that have socio-cultural origins.

This project addresses problems of political disengagement, social exclusion, multi-generational poverty, and social injustice in communities left behind by an incomplete democracy, now in acute crisis. Using jazz improvisation as a metaphor for Dewey’s ideals for a thriving and creative American democracy, this normative critical theory and pedagogy is part of a multi-pronged approach to radical democratic reform. Building on theories of humanistic prophetic pragmatism, critical pedagogy, and democratic theory, and suffused with critical race feminism, this critical approach begins with individual transformation, critical consciousness, and agency of marginalized citizens, through critical improvisational pedagogy. The approach seeks to prepare more diverse voices for active democratic deliberation and effective participation in democratic public spaces of input, negotiation, and challenge for the issues that affect marginalized people. The project creates an architecture, a basic template, and an operationalization strategy for the development of centers of critical improvisational pedagogy for the transmission of critical knowledge, mentoring, community support, and apprenticeships through culturally appropriate arts and cultural programming in accessible local community sites. Key Words: critical improvisational pedagogy, prophetic pragmatism, critical feminist theory, radical democratic reform, jazz imaginary, critical consciousness / Political Science

[pt] A partir da obra musical de Nicanor Teixeira (1928...), esta tese pretende desenvolver possíveis relações entre música, tempo e imaginário, assim como a especificidade da arte musical em seu acontecer. Como um homem nascido e criado no interior da Bahia, suas composições trazem tanto possibilidades do sentir quanto do pensar que reconfiguram a vida. Há nelas elementos telúricos que nos remetem, entre outros, a paisagens musicais de moinhos, de mulheres que descascavam mandiocas, de vaquejadas, de amores e festas sagradas ou profanas. Mas há também elementos que fogem à cronologia da experiência e que vêm de tempos que não podem ser datados. A partir dessas circunstâncias, ser vamos investigar uma trajetória que pode ligar, pela música, o sertanejo aos gregos antigos. A experiência numinosa, nesse caso, é o mistério que conduz a arte. A suspensão do tempo e dos juízos reverberam sentidos e sensações que não cessam de nos dizer algo e atuam diretamente nas ações humanas, tanto para o bem quanto para o mal. Por isso, a singularidade da potência musical é incessantemente tematizada em nossa história. / [en] From Nicanor Teixeira s musical work (1928...) this study aims to develop the possible relations between music, time and imaginary, as well as the specificity of musical art within its very existence. As a man born and raised in Bahia s backcountry his compositions brings us as much possibilities of the feeling sense as of thinking, which reconfigure life. There are in these telluric elements that drive us, amongst others, to musical landscapes of mills, of women peeling manioc, of cowboy caravans, of love stories and sacred or profane parties. Although, there is also in Teixeira s work the elements which escape the experienced chronology and that come from immemorial times which cannot be dated. From these circumstances this work will investigate the path that might connect through music the backcountry to the ancient Greeks. In this case, the numinous experience is the mystery that guides to art. The suspension of time and reasoning reverberate sense and feelings which do not cease to tell us something, and which act directly upon human actions, both for good and bad. That is why the uniqueness of musical power is unceasingly narrated in our history.

This project asks questions about identity, place and the role of structures as memory aids. It specifically deals with the aftermath of having moved from one culture to another,  and how being surrounded by a new and foreign architectural world can interrupt one’s connec-tion to the sense of self. Working from the question “Can I recreate what I lost by using an imaginary architecture imbued with my memories?” I create what I call architectural ghosts, structures made with porcelain, wood, wire and metal as an attempt to replace the memory connections I lost when leaving Mexico.

In spite of the long tradition and strong national identity of military non-alignment, the Social Democratic government enabled a profound redefinition of the national interest into an application for a Swedish membership of NATO. Through a critical discourse analysis, this thesis will explore how this was made possible, focusing on the social construction of national interests. Based on constructivism and ideas of Jutta Weldes, three main concepts were identified guiding the discursive analytical framework: the security imaginary of a state, subject positions, and chains of connotations. Furthermore, the analysis shows that this radical shift in the Swedish security policy primarily occurred through reinforcing an image of ‘the Russian threat’, as well as through new subject positioning where NATO was moved closer to Sweden and ‘the self’, followed by particular chains of connotations. These findings emphasize the importance of applying a critical lens to explore perceptions and interpretations within discourse, the constitutive function of language and the hidden meanings behind it.