Written within an existentialist mode, Nakamura Fuminori’s early fictional works lend themselves to be read as therapeutic technologies reaching out to Japanese youth whose lives are marked by anxiety, isolation, and precariousness. Because English-language scholarship on Nakamura is lacking, this thesis analyzes two of his novels – Child of Dirt and Evil and the Mask – in order to introduce how Nakamura understands the human, how his texts function formally as therapeutic technologies, and how, in the final analysis, they exhibit a nascent sexism that borders on misogyny.

Esta pesquisa se fundamenta na hipótese de que ao longo da redemocratização foi desenvolvido um novo tipo de ativismo artístico, o ativismo institucional. O qual, por ter efetivamente impactado no processo de reformulação institucional e nas políticas voltadas para as artes visuais, se diferencia das estratégias de ativismo comumente associadas ao período da ditadura militar, o frentismo - quando um grupo de artistas se unem para problematizar e/ou se opor a uma dada situação - e o ativismo da obra, quando o trabalho artístico é indissociável de seu vínculo com o político. Desse modo, essa estratégia de intervenção artística está diretamente conectada a três questões: a relação das artes visuais com o estado autoritário no pós-1974; o processo de institucionalização das artes visuais ao longo da redemocratização e o desenvolvimento de um horizonte de inteligibilidade para arte contemporânea no Brasil. / This research is based on the hypothesis that during the re-democratization a new type of artistic activism was developed, institutional activism. Which, by having an effective impact in the process of institutional reformulation and in the policies for the visual arts, differs from the activism strategies commonly associated with the period of the military dictatorship, the frentismo - when a group of artists unite to problematize and / or oppose to a given situation - and the activism of the work, when the artistic work is inseparable from its link with the politician. Thus, this strategy of artistic intervention is directly connected to three questions: the relation of the visual arts to the authoritarian state in post-1974; the process of institutionalization of the visual arts along the redemocratization and the development of a horizon of intelligibility for contemporary art in Brazil.

Esta Tese tem como tema de pesquisa as relações entre crianças e adultos na Contemporaneidade. Caracteriza-se como uma pesquisa do presente que empreende um olhar genealógico para compreender práticas atuais entre os sujeitos infantis e os sujeitos adultos. Este estudo inscreve-se numa perspectiva pós-estruturalista de pensar a Educação e seus contornos, a partir do aporte teórico dos Estudos Foucaultianos, especialmente com as noções de genealogia e governamentalidade. A considerar que, na Contemporaneidade, há deslocamentos nas formas de viver o exercício do governamento infantil, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender as condições de possibilidade que estabeleceram o exercício das práticas, entre crianças e adultos, nos mais distintos espaços, bem como problematizar o sentido que essas práticas assumem no contemporâneo. Para tanto, foram analisados os seguintes documentos, Programas e Leis: Declaração dos Direitos da Criança (1959), Constituição Federal (1988), Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (1990), Programa Primeira Infância Melhor (2006) e Lei Menino Bernardo (2014). Tal análise possibilita compreender que, na Contemporaneidade, está sendo produzida uma infância de direito e uma infância protagonista. Essas formas de compreender a infância foram consideradas como algumas das condições de possibilidade para as práticas atuais entre sujeitos infantis e adultos. Com o olhar de pesquisador cartógrafo, foram selecionadas e analisadas situações do cotidiano que evidenciaram deslocamentos do exercício de governamento entre crianças e adultos, movimento que foi nomeado nesta Tese como infantocracia. / This thesis has - as a research theme - the relationships between children and adults in the Contemporaneity. It is characterized as a current research, which adopts a genealogical point of view to understand current practices between infant and adult subjects. This study follows a post - structuralist perspective of thinking about Education and its outlines, based on the theoretical contribution of Foucault Studies, especially through the notions of genealogy and governmentality. Considering there is a movement in the ways of practicing children's governance, in contemporaneity, this research aims at understanding the conditions of possibility that established these practices, between children and adults, in the most distinct spaces, as well as questioning the meaning that these practices assume in the contemporary. Therefore, the following documents, Programs and Laws were analyzed: Declaração dos Direitos da Criança (1959), Constituição Federal (1988), Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (1990), Programa Primeira Infância Melhor (2006) e Lei Menino Bernardo (2014). This analysis made it possible to understand that, in the Contemporaneity, a rights childhood and a leading childhood were produced. These forms of understanding childhood were considered as being some of the conditions of possibility for the current practices among children and adults. Through the view of researcher cartographer, we selected and analyzed everyday situations that evidenced this movement of the exercise of governance between children and adults, a movement that was named in this thesis as infantocracy. Based on the analyzes, it was possible to affirm that the principle of full protection - noticed in the different studied documents - can be considered a strategy to gather the child population, and that the constitution of these subjects (as protagonists and subjects of rights) is presented as a condition of possibility for the emergence of infantocratic practices. Such practices, taken as central in this study, trigger the formation of flexible, healthy, self-entrepreneurs, and proactive subjects: necessary characteristics for the subjects of neoliberal governmentality. It is also possible to affirm that infantocratic practices constitute a change in the ways of understanding and of living the relationships among children and adults in Contemporaneity, and that they are only achievable thought the grid of intelligibility of the neoliberal governmentality. Therefore, this thesis supported the following statement: from the conditions that established the child as a protagonist and subject of rights - established in the neoliberal political rationality of our time - there are changes in the ways of understanding and of living the practice of governance practices among adults and children, named here as infantocratic practices.

Classical reception, suppressed under Stalin, returned to Soviet poetry during the Thaw (c. 1953-63), and through the many political upheavals of the late twentieth century it has remained a prominent trend in contemporary Russian poetry. This thesis explores classical reception in the oeuvres of Elena Shvarts, Il’ia Kutik, and Polina Barskova, whose poetry spans from 1963 to the present. They form part of – and serve as case studies for – the wider trend of late- and post-Soviet poetic engagement with classical antiquity. This phenomenon has been studied in the cases of Thaw poets Iosif Brodskii and, to a lesser extent, Aleksandr Kushner, but investigations have not extended beyond these figures to the succeeding Stagnation and post-Soviet poets. Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova come from different generations and different poetic schools, and have very different poetic styles. They share a sustained and playful engagement with the literature and history of Ancient Greece and Rome, which is often in dialogue with earlier Russian receptions of classical antiquity. Their classical reception is frequently intended to ‘estrange’ Soviet/Russian contexts, thus making antiquity an ‘alter ego’ of Russia. This objective is facilitated – and inspired – by the Russian literary tradition. Since its inception Russian literature has set classical antiquity before itself as a model, imitating its literary forms and emulating its characters. This long-standing analogy between Russia and the classical world underpins Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova’s evocations of classical antiquity as Russia’s alter ego. The utility of the classical alter ego lies precisely in its alterity: as well as a vehicle for veiled dissidence, as with Aesopian speech, it can be a more extreme, or fun, or ideal reality. Inherent in Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova’s recourse to classical reception as alter ego is a desire to connect with Europe, from which Russians were palpably divided for much of the twentieth century – the Mandel’shtamian ‘yearning for world culture’. It stems also from their desire to connect with pre-Soviet (classically receptive) Russian literature. The thesis begins with a history of classical reception in Russian literature from Russia’s first contact with the classical world up to the present. Such a history is crucial to understanding contemporary poets’ classical reception, as so many of their references to classical antiquity are refracted through Russian intertexts. The chapters on Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova examine the entire oeuvre (to date) of each poet, selecting key poems and themes for close analysis. This is conducted alongside the intertexts (quotations from classical texts are given in English only, except where the original language has demonstrably informed reception). As well as literary contexts, historical and personal contexts are considered. Interviews conducted by the author with both living poets (Kutik and Barskova) inform the analysis. This thesis contends that the pervasive classical reception evident in Russian poetry from 1953 to the present responds to the series of ontological crises Russia was precipitated into by the upheavals of the twentieth century. With the loosening of Socialist Realism’s control over literature after Stalin, Russian poets resume Russia’s poetic tradition of using classical antiquity as an alter ego, both to heighten portrayals of Russia, and to imagine another, alternate, Russia.

The breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 has had a variety of significant repercussions on Chinese politics, foreign policy, and other aspects. This doctoral project examines the evolution of Chinese intellectual perceptions of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s, before and after the collapse. Relying on a larger body of updated Chinese sources, this thesis will offer re-evaluations of many key issues in post-Mao Chinese Sovietology. The following topics will be explored or re-examined: Chinese views of Soviet policies in the early 1980s prior to Mikhail Gorbachev’s assumption of power; Chinese perceptions of Gorbachev’s political reform from the mid-1980s onward, before the outbreak of the Tiananmen Incident in 1989; Chinese scholars’ evolving views on Gorbachev from the 1980s to 1990s; the Chinese use of Vladimir Lenin and his policies in the early 1980s and early 1990s for bolstering and legitimizing the CCP regime after the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Incident, respectively; and the re-evaluations of Leonid Brezhnev and Joseph Stalin since the mid-1990s. First, the thesis argues that the changing Chinese views on the USSR were not only shaped by the ups-and-downs of Sino-Soviet (and later Sino-Russian) relations, China’s domestic political climate, and the political developments in Moscow. Even more importantly, views changed in response to the earth-shaking event of the rise and fall of world communism in the last two decades of the 20th century. Second, by researching the country of the Soviet Union, Chinese Soviet-watchers did not focus on the USSR alone, but mostly attempted to confirm and legitimize the Chinese state policies of reform and open door in both decades. By examining the Soviet past, Chinese scholars not only demonstrated concern for the survival of the CCP regime, but also attempted to envision the future direction and position of China in the post-communist world. This included analysis of how China could rise to be a powerful nation under the authoritarian one-party rule, without succumbing to Western democracy and the sort of collapse that doomed the USSR. In short, Chinese research on Soviet socialism has primarily served to trace the current problems of Chinese socialism, in order to legitimize their solutions – rather than a truth-seeking process devoted to knowledge of the Soviet Union.

The picture book is an artistic medium is part of literature, especially of children’s literature. This discussion of the picture book extends to the dynamic between author and illustrator, and interactions between the verbal and the visual, as described by contemporary researchers, such as Maria Nikolajeva, Lawrence R. Sipe, and Carole Scott. Most of them were not picture book creators, so the voice of the picture book’s creator is easily overlooked. To fill the gap between the researcher and the creator, this project explores the creative process of the picture book by studio-art research. This project is concerned with the creation process of a picture book, presenting a coherent overview of an approach to creating an artist’s picture book, especially in the idea of development through both visual and narrative by two methods: research and practice. This thesis demonstrates my framework of creating an artistic picture book, Little Mouse. Chapter one discusses the methodology of the studio-art research, compares practical-led research and practical-based research, and identifies my multicultural background, to set the foundation of this project. In Chapter two, I applied a part of practical-led methodology to adapt and transfer a range of sources from history, theory, literature and popular culture to build up and enhance the depth of my concept of Little Mouse, which encompasses and analyses my core interest - a life-changing journey. Chapter three discusses how I applied practical-based methodology to reflect the progress of the practical work of making Little Mouse, particularly focusing on how framed a fiction story, and discussing step by step my approach to illustration practice. In the last chapter, I tested my potential readers to review whether my work succeeded in communicating and delivering my visual research in the form of my finished book. This project hybridizes multicultural sources to form a contemporary picture book which blurs the boundaries between illustrator/writer and reality/fiction. This also provides a case study of the picture book for bridging research and picture book’s creator and demonstrates a process of understanding and interpreting creative activities.

Esta pesquisa se fundamenta na hipótese de que ao longo da redemocratização foi desenvolvido um novo tipo de ativismo artístico, o ativismo institucional. O qual, por ter efetivamente impactado no processo de reformulação institucional e nas políticas voltadas para as artes visuais, se diferencia das estratégias de ativismo comumente associadas ao período da ditadura militar, o frentismo - quando um grupo de artistas se unem para problematizar e/ou se opor a uma dada situação - e o ativismo da obra, quando o trabalho artístico é indissociável de seu vínculo com o político. Desse modo, essa estratégia de intervenção artística está diretamente conectada a três questões: a relação das artes visuais com o estado autoritário no pós-1974; o processo de institucionalização das artes visuais ao longo da redemocratização e o desenvolvimento de um horizonte de inteligibilidade para arte contemporânea no Brasil. / This research is based on the hypothesis that during the re-democratization a new type of artistic activism was developed, institutional activism. Which, by having an effective impact in the process of institutional reformulation and in the policies for the visual arts, differs from the activism strategies commonly associated with the period of the military dictatorship, the frentismo - when a group of artists unite to problematize and / or oppose to a given situation - and the activism of the work, when the artistic work is inseparable from its link with the politician. Thus, this strategy of artistic intervention is directly connected to three questions: the relation of the visual arts to the authoritarian state in post-1974; the process of institutionalization of the visual arts along the redemocratization and the development of a horizon of intelligibility for contemporary art in Brazil.

In this project I explore the creation of female community in the novels of four contemporary feminist writers: Nicole Brossard, Michelle Cliff, Maryse Condé, and Gisèle Pineau. I contend that in their diverse representations of female community, these women writers provide collaborative feminist models of resistance, creative transformation, and renewal. Building on Judith Butler's articulation of agency as variation on repetition, I argue that these writers transform the space of the novel in order to tell these stories of community, revitalizing this form as a potential site of collaborative performance of identity. They offer an alternative vision that is not only feminist and collective, but also transnational, translinguistic, historical, and epistemological - challenging and reconfiguring the way in which we understand our world. I develop the project thematically in terms of coming-of-age through and into female community (what the communities in these novels look like and the relationship between individuals and communities, seen through the process of individual maturity). I then consider the formal construction of female community through the collective narrative voice (both within the novels and outside them, in the form of each writer's collective body of engaged feminist dialogue in interviews and theory). Finally, I explore female community through alternative genealogies and quests for origin (demonstrating the implications of these novels' vision for transforming a more traditional worldview, with transnational communities and the transmission of historical knowledge across generations of women).

O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar como a arte e a moda, representam o cotidiano no contemporâneo, principalmente no que diz respeito à crítica ao sistema vigente, a representação do instante formador do cotidiano e da apropriação da arte pelo consumo. Por necessidade de um recorte metodológico as Artes de Muro também conhecidas como Grafites foram escolhidas como fenômeno de observação por ser uma arte pública e de fácil acesso a maioria dos indivíduos que interagem com o espaço urbano. Observa-se que embora a Arte de Muro seja em sua maioria uma crítica aos moldes impostos pelo sistema, ela acaba por ser aglutinada por ele e transformada em bens de consumo de alto valor. / The objective of this work is to see how art and fashion, represent the everyday in contemporary, especially with regard to the criticism of the current system, the representation of time trainer every day and appropriation of art by consumption. On the need for a methodological approach for the Arts also known as Wall Graffiti were chosen as a phenomenon of observation to be a public and easily accessible to most individuals who interact with the urban space art. It is observed that although the Art Wall is mostly a critique of the molds imposed by the system, it turns out to be bonded by it and transformed into consume high value goods.

Cartografia figurada Atlas e Caderno de Campo é o resultado da pesquisa de Mestrado que tem por objeto a produção artística de Guilherme Teixeira entre os anos de 1999 e 2010. O projeto artístico equivalente a uma dissertação de mestrado apresenta-se em duas partes: Atlas e Caderno de Campo. O Atlas é um pôster em que estão reproduzidos 58 trabalhos, oferecendo ao leitor uma visão panorâmica da produção estudada. Cerca de uma centena de outras imagens estão impressas em cartões, organizados em seis bolsos transparentes. Caderno de Campo reúne textos, em forma de comentários, relacionados aos trabalhos e projetos apresentados no Atlas. / Figurative Cartography Atlas and Field Notebook is the result of the Master research focused in the artistic production of Guilherme Teixeira between 1999 and 2010. This artistic project equivalent to a dissertation is made up of two parts: Atlas and Field Notebook. Atlas is a poster that shows pictures of 58 artworks disposed in a panoramic view. The reader can handle about a hundred images, available in six transparent pockets. Field Notebook shows texts, as personal annotations, related to the works and projects printed in the Atlas.