abstract: The comparative study of the poetics of landscape of the Argentinian poet Diana Bellessi in Sur (1998) and the U.S. poet Mary Oliver in What Do We Know (2002) reveal how each writer acknowledges discourse and perception as means to bridge the nature/culture dichotomy and to unsettle the American landscape from cultural and epistemological assumptions that perpetuate the disconnection with matter. While Bellessi re–signifies the historical and cultural landscape drawn by European colonization in order to establish a dialogue with the voices of the past related to a present–day quest to reconnect with nature, Oliver articulates an ontological and phenomenological expression to reformulate prevailing notions of cognizing materiality aiming to overcome the culture/nature divide. I therefore examine the interrelationship between perception, language and nature in Bellessi’s and Oliver’s poetic works by deploying Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory of perception into material feminist theoretical works by Karen Barad and Susan Hekman. In so doing, I demonstrate how both poets act on language to forge a non–dualistic expression that, in allowing matter as an agentic force that relates with humans in dynamics of mutual impact and intra–activity, entails a phenomenological and onto–epistemological approach to ground language in materiality and produce ethical discursive practices to relate with nature. I argue that Bellessi’s and Oliver’s approach toward nature proves as necessary in the articulation of efforts leading to overcome the nature/culture dichotomy and thus, to address ecological and environmental concerns. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. English 2011

A pesquisa apresenta um estudo teórico desencadeado pela tentativa de se alcançar a compreensão sobre um sentido de lugar relacionado ao plano das ideias, sendo estas entendidas como o resultado de elaborações mentais fundadas a partir das experiências, percepções e também do imaginário das pessoas. A abordagem ancora-se num enfoque transdisciplinar a fim de desenvolver uma reflexão a respeito das muitas questões simbólicas e subjetivas que tangem o tema. Considerando-se a hipótese de que o lugar não é apenas uma construção física, já que no âmbito dos usos e das apropriações o contato entre indivíduo e obra edificada é determinante para trazer à tona um sentido essencial de lugar, entende-se que essa essência esteja intimamente conectada às ideias que as pessoas têm acerca dos lugares, refletindo o fenômeno existencial da habitação. Tal perspectiva aponta para a adoção da fenomenologia como um método de análise preocupado com as questões referentes ao problema das essências e que, no caso específico do estudo de lugar, repercute os domínios das emoções e do pensamento humano. Ao integrar-se a essa esfera subjetiva, permeada pelas práticas existenciais estabelecidas entre sujeito e mundo vivido, nota-se que o sentido de lugar enfocado pela pesquisa se traduz por um forte caráter simbólico, que ultrapassa a perspectiva das localizações físicas e da materialidade do ambiente construído. Dessa forma, fundamenta-se a elaboração da tese que aponta para o entendimento de que a arquitetura não constrói lugares, mas, ao agir na configuração espacial, repercute os ecos de uma atividade que auxilia a humanidade a compor suas próprias ideias de lugar. Tanto o pensamento por detrás do projeto arquitetônico quanto as qualidades físicas da obra executada são capazes de lançar as ordens conceituais, utilitárias e estéticas sinalizadoras das diretrizes interpostas na relação das pessoas com os lugares. A arquitetura estimula a percepção dos usuários e convida-os a uma experiência deflagradora de ideias formatadas pelo uso, apropriação e/ou contemplação de determinado ambiente, cristalizando um sentido de lugar propício à habitação que, na prática, corresponde aos atos de entrar, permanecer e contemplar o/no mundo. / This research presents a theoretical study brought about by an attempt to achieve an understanding of a sense of place in relation to the realm of ideas, which result from mental elaborations created from people’s experiences, perceptions, and imagination. The approach is grounded on a transdisciplinary perspective in order to develop some reflective thought on the many symbolic and subjective issues around the theme. Taking into account the hypothesis that place is not a mere physical construction, given that within the scope of use and appropriation the contact between individuals and erected buildings is a determining factor to bring forth an essential sense of place, there is an understanding that this essence is intimately linked to the ideas that people have about places, reflecting the existential phenomenon of inhabiting. This perspective indicates the adoption of phenomenology as an analytical method concerned with questions regarding the problem of essences and which, in the specific case of a study on place, echoes the domains of emotions and human thought. By adjoining this subjective sphere permeated by existential practices established between subject and the experienced world, one can observe that the sense of place addressed by the study is perceived as having a strong symbolic character which goes beyond the perspective of physical locations and the materiality of the built environment. This is the foundation of the thesis pointing towards the understanding that architecture does not build places, but rather, upon acting on spatial configuration echoes an activity that helps people compose their own ideas of place. Both the thought behind an architectural project and the physical characteristics of the executed work are capable of disposing the conceptual, utilitarian, and aesthetic orders that signal the guidelines interposed in the relationship between people and places. Architecture stimulates users’ perception and invites them to an experience that entices ideas formatted by the use, appropriation, and/or contemplation of a given environment, thus solidifying a sense of place suitable for inhabiting which, in practice, corresponds to the acts of entering, remaining in, and contemplating the world.

This project involves a sustained investigation into the sense of the enemy. Chapter one begins by focusing on a common understanding of the enemy found within our homeworld: the political enemy. As will become clear, this mode of encountering the enemy has become the dominant framework for understanding the enemy in our liberal-democratic home. Our task at this point is to identify the political elements from which our mode of understanding the enemy emerges. Once this dominant understanding has been developed, I will treat it as a clue for a fuller investigation into the sense of the enemy. In chapter two, we see that even positions critical of liberal-democratic thought tend to occupy a similar political understanding of the enemy. Working with the writings of Carl Schmitt, we observe how even his critical posture towards the liberal-democratic understanding of the enemy is itself operating within a similar articulation of the enemy. I argue that Schmitt's articulation is similar to the liberal-democratic articulation in that they are both modern in nature. The task of the third chapter is to understand the problematic aspects of the modern understanding of our world so as to clear the way for a fuller understanding of the enemy. This is followed by the fourth chapter that is devoted to finding a way to think outside of the modern liberal-democratic model of politics that regulates our homeworld understanding of the enemy. In so doing, chapters three and four help us find an opening into a more essential structure organizing the sense of the enemy. Once this goal is accomplished, the final chapter investigates the way we encounter the enemy within generative and intersubjective lived experience.

In this dissertation I examine our relationship with the Earth and our natural environment by clarifying what it means to be human. I do this by looking at the interpenetration of spheres of being or philosophical anthropology to articulate how the human being is the dynamic meeting point of life and spirit. In this interpenetration of life and spirit, the task of the human being as loving flashes forth. On the basis of this task, it is possible to realize a loving relationship with the Earth and our natural environment that is not based on domination or use. To understand further how we are situated in relation to the earth and our natural environment, I discuss shortcomings of both the conservation and deep ecology movements. I also discuss problems with traditional philosophical anthropologies to highlight how some of these presuppositions have been incorporated into our relationship with the earth and our natural environment. To illuminate how life and spirit are enmeshed in one another, I describe Nicolai Hartmann's new ontology and Edmund Husserl's regional ontology as well as Scheler's philosophical anthropology since all of these philosophers ground their reflections in experience. However, since Scheler grounds being human in loving, his approach is unique and not only resolves the supposed dualism between life and spirit but gives us a fresh outlook on the responsibility inherent to being human. This opens the possibility for living a loving relationship with the earth and our natural environment.

This dissertation explores the significance of figurative art for contemporary cultural life. It is motivated by the fact that such art is often regarded as a thing of the past and largely replaced by works born of more recent movements. I argue that figurative art bears possibilities that are not yet exhausted, and moreover that there is something about our age that calls for the creation of figurative works. The first part addresses a diagnosis of modernity offered by Gregg Horowitz. For him, the triumphant attitude of the age hides our inability to digest a series of traumatic losses - the loss of nature's normativity, of art's significance for cross-generational transmission of values, and of history's demand to carry forward the values of previous generations. He sees in art the opportunity to bring such traumatic loss to reflection, and calls for the aesthetics of mourning as art's contemporary vocation. In order to demonstrate the importance of an element of mourning, the discussion of Horowitz is followed by an account of Gianni Vattimo's attempt to retrieve art from a position of inessentiality. The lack of a tragic moment in his project highlights some of the drawbacks connected to such an omission. In the second part of the project I insist that, though the element of mourning is necessary, we should not stop there in the search for art's contemporary vocation. Using the phenomenology of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty I sustain the hope that we may recover some form of continuity without disregarding the trauma of loss. Figurative art is particularly suitable for this task because it is more likely to preserve the integrity of its subject matter rather than breaking it down into its constitutive parts, potentially carrying forward elements of past modes of relating to our world.

BACKGROUND: Researchers have attempted to modify some measures of religiosity/spirituality to address disparities in examining practices and beliefs in non-European minority groups; however, no one has modified or tested religion scales to address disparities between transgender and non-transgender populations. Research using existing scales proved inadequate with a female-to-male transsexual (FTM) population. To begin to modify instruments for applicability to a FTM population requires gaining more knowledge about this population with regard to religion. Research shows individuals who are transgender face resistance to and rejection of their identities beginning early in life. Reliance on majority religions and their concepts of divinity, embodiment--one's experience of having a particular body--and views of immutable, or essential, human qualities based on sex assigned at birth, may create significant problems when interacting with transgender populations. The significance of this study is in learning how a sample of FTMs conceptualize and experience religion to effect more competent interactions with this marginalized people. Interactions based on increased competency with and understanding of FTMs will contribute to improved long-term health outcomes and overall quality of life for this population. Further, exploring the experiences and beliefs of FTMs may challenge our assumptions and understandings about gender itself, expanding our knowledge about human experience of embodiment, and offering insights into traditional concepts of creation and humanity. RESULTS: This study reports a qualitative investigation of the understanding and experience of religion held by six FTM individuals. All participants completed five or more years of cross-sex hormone treatment with testosterone and identified as male. Methods from Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) guided analysis of semistructured interviews and sample size. Four common themes are presented: rejection of early concepts of religion; connection with others; construction of a way of life; and provision of a source of redefinition and reincarnation. The participants' understandings of religion do not principally parallel those in commonly studied populations. The study's most significant finding is that every participant had a fundamental break from religious tradition as he learned it. The researcher concludes by offering preliminary recommendations for clinical interventions and future research.

Orientador: Jonas Gonçalves Coelho / Banca: Tommy Akira Goto / Banca: Marcos Antônio Alves / Resumo: O presente trabalho tem como objetivo elucidar e entender o papel da fenomenologia no contexto das neurociências, em especial, se e como, a primeira tem e pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento da última. A perspectiva fenomenológica refere-se a uma tradição da filosofia originada na Europa pelo filósofo Edmund Husserl e que posteriormente se seguiu com pensadores como Martin Heidegger, Maurice MerleauPonty, Jean-Paul Sartre e pensadores contemporâneos, dentre eles, Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi e Evan Thompson, cujas ideias serão o fio condutor da presente dissertação. Atualmente, a fenomenologia, que tem como escopo o estudo do fenômeno, ou seja, aquilo que se apresenta à consciência vem sendo utilizada como metodologia nas neurociências para que se possa ratificar as pesquisas em terceira pessoa através de uma abordagem de primeira pessoa, projetar os experimentos de forma adequada e razoável e para a interpretação dos resultados obtidos pelas pesquisas empíricas. Nesse contexto, cada uma com seu objetivo, surgem algumas linhas teóricas que se utilizam da fenomenologia e se integram naquilo que é considerado como a naturalização da fenomenologia, tendo como exemplos a neurofenomenologia, a fenomenologia frontloading e a matematização da fenomenologia. O status de naturalização da fenomenologia é algo corroborado por alguns pensadores que argumentam a favor do avanço do progresso científico por meio dos mais diversos caminhos, como também vista de forma antagônica, pois foge do propósito no qual a fenomenologia fora proposta, fazer frente à ciência como método de conhecimento daquilo que é estritamente vivenciado por um sujeito experienciador. / Abstract: The present study aims to elucidate and understand the role of phenomenology in the context of neuroscience, in particular, whether and how the former has and can contribute to the development of the latter. The phenomenological perspective refers to a tradition of philosophy that originated in Europe by the philosopher Edmund Husserl and later followed with thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre and contemporary thinkers, among them, Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi and Evan Thompson, whose ideas will be the guiding thread of this dissertation. Currently phenomenology that is scoped to the study of the phenomenon, ie, that which presents itself to consciousness has been used as a methodology in neuroscience so that we can ratify the polls in the third person through a first-person approach, designing experiments proper and reasonable manner and for the interpretation of results obtained by empirical research. In this context, each with its goal, raises some theoretical lines that use of phenomenology and integrate what is regarded as the naturalization of phenomenology, taking as examples the neurophenomenology, the front-loading phenomenology and the mathematization of phenomenology. The status of naturalization of phenomenology is something corroborated by some thinkers who advocate for the advancement of scientific progress through various ways such as also seen antagonistically because flees the way in which phenomenology was proposed, to address science as a method of knowledge of what is strictly experienced by an experience subject. / Mestre

Despite the burgeoning field of Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion and the surfeit of literature on the philosophy of the body, little discusses the connections between the religious practice and the body in any phenomenologically rigorous way. However, one might argue that the phenomenology of incarnation serves as an excellent example of the ways in which the phenomenological innovations achieved by French phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Michel Henry, and Jean-Luc Marion allow for the study of both the body and the religious to be furthered. Given that the field of French phenomenology is vast, it is essential that we limit our study to but a few phenomenologists whose work is most substantially involved with the problem of incarnate experience, religious experience, embodiment, and the relation to the transcendent. Therefore, this project will proceed by way of working through phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, and Michel Henry in order to explore the resources these four thinkers have for our investigation into incarnate experience. Afterwards, I will attempt to construct a phenomenology of incarnate experience, drawing from their resources and insights into potential problems in hopes of being able to move beyond the problems of "doctrinal importation" and "allusory ambiguity" and further the discourse of philosophy's encounter with religious experience.

In this dissertation, I investigate how questioning appears within Edmund Husserl’s work. I do so through five chapters. In the first, I introduce questioning as a moment of a reason’s striving for truth, as it appears both in the individual and through history. In the second, I clarify how he finds the structure of questioning as an intention that appears to fulfill a questionable experience. In the third, I explicate his analysis of its temporal genesis and fulfillment in the individual. In the fourth, I turn to how he treats the development of questioning across generations, especially as it first emerges from the child’s curiosity. Finally, in the fifth, I give an overview of the transformation of questioning through three stages of history, expressed in myth, science, and phenomenology. Through these chapters, I claim Husserl finds a development of ways of questioning through history but also that questioning itself is an essential moment of this historical development.

Drawing on John Dewey's philosophy, I argue first that our distinctive human existence depends most fundamentally on practices of communication. I then argue that creative artistic work plays a crucial and inescapable role in shaping and enabling communication. The focus of my dissertation is then on showing the unique and distinctive role that art plays in facilitating the emergence of democratic culture, specifically. To make this argument I draw on Hegel's analysis of two particular artistic media: architecture and painting. I argue first that architecture, though it can serve many different functions, is most essentially the articulation of a shared sense of human dwelling. I then argue that painting, on the contrary, has as its distinctive artistic function the articulation of the distinctive experience of individuality. Turning again to Dewey, I then argue that democratic culture depends essentially on both this communal and this individualistic sense of our existence and, consequently, that in fundamental ways the historical development of the arts of architecture and painting have made possible the emergence of a democratic culture. I conclude, finally, that it is also definitive of the very meaning of democracy that it itself promote the proliferation of transformative practices of creative communication, and hence that, just as it depends inherently on a history of artistic practice, democracy must equally commit itself to the development of new forms of artistic expression.