Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:26:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Paulo Eduardo Rodrigues Ruiz.pdf: 17241835 bytes, checksum: 3ae3cf02e74bd112c2c13464d3b713ec (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-23 / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the question of the photographic ambiguity in the 19th century from the theoretical assumption that photography was considered, in its origins, a kind of pencil of nature . This concept was developed by the English researcher and photographer William Henry Fox Talbot, in the work The Pencil of Nature, published between 1844 and 1846. Our discussion is based on the assumption that The Pencil of Nature already presented ambiguities and ambivalences typical of the photographic practice in the 19th century and, to an extent, until today, as regards the technical, scientific, commercial and artistic appeal of an industrial society. We draw examples from the photographic production at the time, using concepts developed by philosophers and theorists of photography such as Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Philippe Dubois, André Rouillé and Boris Kossoy, related to some basic notions about the photographic language: the question of technology and photographic verisimilitude, the shift in the perception of reality through photography and the presence of death in the photographic image / O objetivo deste trabalho é refletir a respeito da questão da ambiguidade fotográfica no século XIX a partir do pressuposto teórico de que a fotografia era considerada, em seus primórdios, uma espécie de lápis da natureza . Este conceito foi concebido pelo pesquisador e fotógrafo inglês William Henry Fox Talbot, na obra ThePencilofNature, publicada entre os anos de 1844 e 1846. O fio condutor de nossa discussão parte da hipótese de que ThePencilofNature já apresentava uma série de ambiguidades e ambivalências características da prática fotográfica do século XIX e, em parte, até os dias de hoje, em relação ao apelo técnico-científico, comercial e artístico de uma sociedade industrial. Para tal reflexão, utilizaremos alguns exemplos da produção fotográfica da época, fazendo uso de alguns conceitos de filósofos e de pensadores da fotografia tais como Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Philippe Dubois, André Rouillé e Boris Kossoy, relacionados a alguns preceitos básicos sobre a linguagem fotográfica: a questão da técnica e da verossimilhança fotográficas, a transformação da percepção do real por meio da fotografia e a presença da morte no registro fotográfico

Since the advent of the environmental crisis, some writers have raised concerns with the moral influence of Christian scripture and interpretive traditions, such as the medieval book of nature, a hermeneutic in which nature and scripture are "read" in reference to one another. Scripture, they argue, has tended to stifle sacred relationships with nature as a non-human other. This thesis argues that such perspectives are reductive of the sacred quality of scripture. Environmental perspectives should be concerned with the desacralization of religious texts in addition to nature. Chapter one suggests that two questions surrounding the medieval book of nature's history can help us address ways that such perspectives reduce religious interpretation of sacred texts. The first question is the tension between manifestation and proclamation, or the question of how scripture and nature reveal sacred meanings. The second is the problem of evil, or the question of where evil and suffering come from. It also proposes that Shakespeare's As You Like It and religious philosophy, particularly Paul Ricoeur's writings, can help us address these problems and provide a contemporary religious perspective of the "book of nature." Drawing on scenes in the play in which nature is "read" as a book and Ricoeur's essay on "Manifestation and Proclamation," chapter two argues how manifestation often works interdependently with proclamation. Chapter three discusses how anthropocentric worldviews in which natural entities are exploited also distort interpretive relationships with scripture. Overcoming desacralization requires giving up desires to suppress contingencies, particularly suffering, in nature and in interpreting religious texts. Only as the characters in As You Like It accept contingencies are they able to engage hidden sources of hope, which is comparable to the need to let go of mastery in interpretation Ricoeur describes. Chapter four discusses problems with attempts to uncover the origins of the environmental crisis by discussing what Ricoeur writes about the problems with theodicy and Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of evil. Assumptions that specific human origins for evil can be blamed confirm deceptively human-centered worldviews and can mask valuable messages about how to morally respond to suffering that are taught in Judeo-Christian narratives.