The aim of this master thesis is to describe the origin, development and current state of the highland games in Scotland, the Czech Republic and around the world. The emphasis is put on the description of the origin of the highland games within the clan society, subsequent marginalisation of the highland traditions and its "rebirth". The work also deals with the development of the modern highland games from the end of the 18th century to the present. The description of the current highland games' disciplines is also included. At the end of the thesis the culture identity is defined and it is applied on the phenomenon of the highland games. Key words: highland games, clans, the Highlands, disciplines at the highland games, cultural identity, traditions

The present thesis focuses on French Caribbean fiction writers (from Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana) in Czech translations. The principal subject of the thesis are the specific challenges that translators have to face when translating these authors into Czech. The description of these challenges is preceded by a general presentation of this type of literature. Chapter 1 traces the development of French Caribbean literature (the concepts of francité, négritude, antillanité, créolité and littérature-monde) and defines its characteristic features (especially communication settings and language choices) from the point of view of postcolonial theories. Chapter 2 adds more features by using the comparison of literary translation and postcolonial writing, revealing that they share certain principles and methods. Specific questions and challenges related to the translation of Caribbean literature are also treated in this chapter. Chapter 3 addresses the issue of French Caribbean fiction in the Czech Republic. It lists sources of information, published translations and reactions to these translations in Czech press and analyses the Czech literary market. The chapter is concluded by a summary of the reception of this literature in the Czech Republic. Chapter 4 analyses the latest...

This thesis aimed to report on the qualitative research conducted which identified the role played by international television soap operas in identity formation and cultural change in relation to Kurdish women. Currently, Kurdish women live in a cultural context where traditional values often conflict with modern values when it comes to behaviour deemed appropriate for their gender. Through the impact of international television soap operas, Kurdish women come to identify themselves as being 'traditional' while at the same time they attempt to integrate non-traditional beliefs into their value system. This study looked at the relationship between Kurdish women's exposure to international television, soap operas and consumerism, as well as the problems which they create in terms of non-Western women's identity formation. This thesis has documented the lives and experiences of 21 female Kurdish participants, aged between 18 and 40, through in-depth interviews and observations. The thesis assumes that the views recorded are representative of the general viewpoint of viewers of the international soaps. Open-ended, in-depth interviews about women were used to explore viewing habits and preferences for various soaps. This thesis incorporates and expresses the ideas which were recorded with regards to the accepted 'typical' characteristics of men and 4 women - it is these characteristics which play an important role in selfformation. It became evident that these women had incorporated values from the traditional Kurdish culture and the modern way of life. The Kurdish women cannot be said to have a 'modernist' outlook on gender-appropriate behaviour, as they are still endemically entrenched in traditional Kurdistan worldviews. The qualitative research analysed the level in which the soap operas act as a kind of medium between the values of modernity and those of tradition. This study, in addition, demonstrates the appeal that soap operas can have on the norms, and other aspects, in the Kurdistan Region, and therefore illustrates that the soaps have an active role as a mechanism of change in Kurdistan. Thus, the research demonstrates the power of the soap operas and their effects on the Kurdish people in this region. Furthermore, this research explored the current media environment in the Kurdistan Region by reviewing the dependency of Kurdish viewers, and the Kurdish television channels, on foreign and imported television programmes into the region.

Ce projet de thèse explore les identités culturelles de la Renaissance de Harlem, aussi bien que les croisements épistémologiques et les agentivités littéraires et artistiques de cette période. Dans un premier temps, le projet s’intéresse à mettre en évidence les discours et les pratiques épistémiques qui traversèrent la Renaissance de Harlem lors de son débout. Notamment, les parrains et activistes de la Renaissance (Du Bois, Locke) sont étudiés dans leur rapport intellectuel avec le discours nationaliste américain; cet étude est situé dans le contexte d'urbanisation et réglementation des corps et des espaces tel qu'il eut lieu à New York au début du XX siècle, époque de la Grande Migration des noirs du Sud au Nord des États Unis. L'analyse se complexifie en considérant comment les pratiques artistiques mais aussi ludiques de Harlem s'approprient des identités genrées et racisées produites par le pouvoir étatique national, et comment les modernistes blanc.hes s'insèrent dans ces processus à niveau épistémique, discursif et poétique. Deuxièmement, le projet engage une lecture approfondie de l’œuvre de l'écrivain noir jamaïcain Claude McKay. Les écritures de McKay permettent de dégager des axes thématiques révélatrices des préoccupations communes aux parrains de la Renaissance: notamment le rapport à la performance des identitées racisées et gendrées dans les discours politiques et propagandistes nationalistes du début du XX siècle. D’ailleurs, les écrits de McKay dépassent la formalisation idéaliste du “black folk” (Du Bois) portée par les élites culturelles de la Renaissance de Harlem, pour se situer sur un terrain plus matériel et existentiel. A partir du style dialogique des écrits de McKay, et de leur rapport aux écritures nationalistes européennes, le projet réfléchit donc à la notion d’intersubjectivité, alors que la littérarité des ouvrages de la Renaissance de Harlem est mise en avant et étudiée en relation aux subjectivités noires et blanches qui s’affrontent ou rencontrent dans le panorama national de l’époque. Troisièmement, le style et les figures culturelles et poétiques déployées dans la fiction de McKay guident l’étude des oeuvres signées par Wallace Thurman, Richard Bruce Nugent, Nella Larsen, aussi bien qu’une discussion des ouvrages par des auteurs et autrices blanches. Ici, la question méthodologique de la mort de l’auteur, mise à l'épreuve des concepts de race et de genre, sera ultérieurement approfondie afin de dégager un éventail d’identités culturelles le plus vaste et riche possible, et d’interroger les rapports de pouvoir liés à la performance de ces identités dans les arts et la littérature de l'époque. / This research project explores the cultural identities and the literary and artistic agencies of the Harlem Renaissance. Firstly, discourses and epistemological practices that traversed the Harlem Renaissance are highlighted in a short intellectual genealogy of the movement. In particular, the relationship of the godfathers of the Harlem Renaissance (W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke) to the American nationalist discourse is given front stage. Such relationship is considered on the background of early-XX-century New York urbanization and regulamentation of bodies and spaces, as the Great Migration of black Americans from the South to the North was taking place. The analysis is complexified by considerations on how, in Harlem, artistic and recreational practices appropriated gendered and racialized identities generated by national state power; also, white modernists' epistemic, discursive and poetic participation to the process is explored. Successively, the research project engages with the reading of black Jamaican author Claude McKay’s literary works. McKay’s writings allow us to trace some thematic axes that show commonalities with the Renaissance godfathers’ concerns, notably in relation to the performance of raced and gendered identities in political and propagandistic discourses of the beginning of the XX century. Yet, it appears that McKay’s writings exceed the idealist formalization of the “black folk” (Du Bois) supported by the cultural elites of the Renaissance, to occupy a ground which privileges a material and existential outlook. Elaborating from the dialogism that characterizes McKay’s writings, and from their relation to European nationalist fictions, the thesis reflects on the notion of intersubjectivity as the literariness of the Harlem Renaissance works is considered and put in relation to black and white subjectivities that clash or meet on the national panorama of the time. Thirdly, the style and cultural figures that appear in the McKay’s fiction provide some guidelines to the study of the works by black writers Wallace Thurman, Richard Bruce Nugent, Nella Larsen, as well as of the works by white writers such as Carl Van Vetchen. Contextually, the methodological question of the death of the author will be further explored in order to extricate a vast and complex specter of cultural identities, and to question power relations linked to the performance of such identities in the arts and writings of the time.

In contemporary consumer culture, branding is the term given to the creation of an image or text (visual, aural, textural or multi-sensory) intended to represent a commodity or product sold by a producer or service provider. This product’s commercial viability depends largely on the way it is presented (via branding) to its target market. The aim of this research report is to show that music used consciously as a branding medium, with special reference to film music (in its commodified form), has become a brand in itself, as opposed to merely a component of a multi-modal commercial product. Through analyses of a central film music theme from Star Wars: Episode IV, composed by John Williams, I aim to identify what I will term `audio-branding techniques’ within the music, thereby showing how music has come to be regarded as a brand. The audio branding techniques will relate directly to the four levels of analysis that I propose to conduct. The nature of branding implies the presence of three entities in the cultural and commercial `transaction’ that takes place: namely, the service provider (creator), the product (commodity) and the target market (consumer). I intend to argue that, as a result of powerful creative collaborations between John Williams and his various directors (not to mention his own unique talent), this composer’s film music has increasingly become an audio brand which is almost commensurate with the brand status of the film itself. Williams’s ability to create a symbiotic relationship between a music brand and that of a film has set him apart from most other contemporary art and commercial composers. As a result, it is not simply the actors, directors and producers associated with a movie that induce one to buy tickets to see it, but Williams’s independent audio branding style as well. I thus aim to prove that his film music is an audio brand independent of, and yet also allied with, other brands.

[pt] Lobo Antunes e Pepetela: A literatura como chave de um horizonte multicultural propõe alguns critérios para a configuração de um horizonte cultural que possibilite um encontro entre as literaturas produzidas atualmente em Portugal e em Angola. Tomando os estudos pós- coloniais como suporte teórico e metodológico, pretende-se promover um diálogo multicultural buscado em textos literários de António Lobo Antunes e de Pepetela. O objetivo central desta dissertação é interrogar a constituição de um quadro que torne possível o convívio de culturas diversas que, apesar das diferenças, dividiram contextos históricos profundamente associados à violência até o final do século XX. / [en] The paper Lobo Antunes and Pepetela: the Literature as a key of multicultural horizon propose some criteria to the installation of a multicultural horizon that promote a meeting between the Literature produced nowadays in Portugal and Angola. Getting the post colonial studies as a theoretical and methodological base, tries to provide a multicultural dialog searching in literary texts from Antonio Lobo Antunes and Pepetela. The main objective of this paper is to interrogate a constitution of a picture which makes possible a variety of cultures living together, besides their differences, shared historical contexts deeply associated to the violence until the end of XX Century.

O indivíduo contemporâneo é fragmentado e possui múltiplas identidades. Quantas referências culturais uma pessoa pode ter? Como essas diferentes identidades convivem entre si? Esta pesquisa acadêmica teve por objetivo utilizar o documentário como meio constituinte e significante para a reflexão sobre a construção das identidades culturais de imigrantes espanhóis na cidade de São Paulo. Para tanto, produzimos um exercício prático em formato de documentário, acompanhado de uma análise que contempla a reflexão sobre o método de produção construído durante a realização do exercício. A reflexão foi feita a partir de aproximações de métodos de produção do antropólogo David MacDougall e dos realizadores Eduardo Coutinho e Trinh T.Minh-há. Do mesmo modo, servimo-nos de alguns postulados de coleta de depoimentos da História Oral, propostos por José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, e dos acercamentos às memórias pessoais estudados por Ecléa Bosi. Levou-se em consideração, ainda, a hipótese elaborada no contexto do laboratório Aruanda lab.doc. Esse grupo de pesquisas, que reflete sobre as diferentes formas de produção de audiovisuais de não-ficção, postula como hipótese que não há uma metodologia única ou unificadora para o documentário, na medida em que ele tem como princípio fundante o compromisso com o real. Isso obriga ao realizador que haja adaptações dos métodos planejados às condições de realização impostas pelo mundo histórico. / The contemporary man is a fragmented being with multiple identities. How many cultural references can a person have? How those different identities interact? In this academic research, documentary film was used as means of constituency and significance of the construct of the cultural identities of Spanish immigrants in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. In order to achieve that, a practical exercise in a documentary film format was conducted, and a written discussion of the method of production elected for the practice was elaborated. The reflection is based on parallels with production methods from the anthropologist David MacDougall and the filmmakers Eduardo Coutinho and Trinh Minh-ha. The analysis also profits from the Oral History collection by José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy and from Ecléa Bosis approach to personal memories. Another source for this research was the set of hypothesis bring about in Aruanda lab.doc meetings. Aruanda is a research group, concerned with reflecting on the various forms of audiovisual production of non-fiction and documentary films. We share Aruandas main research hypothesis is that no single or unifying methodology can account for a documentary film, due to the fact that the foundating principle of documentaries is the compromise with the worlds concrete realities, which requires adaptations of the planned methods to the conditions imposed by the historic world.

Trata-se de estudo de caso a partir da abordagem do design de superfícies têxteis sobre a tecelagem manual, baseada em corantes naturais do Cerrado, na região de Carmo de Rio Claro-FURNAS. Observa-se, nesse contexto, uma grande aplicação da tecnologia tradicional do tear manual aliado ao uso de fibras. Esse saber-fazer,transmitido oralmente, representa fração significativa da economia regional e, em grande medida, a identidade cultural nesse contexto. No entanto, observa-se a perda do conhecimento específico relacionado ao uso de corantes naturais baseado em vegetais do Cerrado, apesar de espécies existentes nesse contexto. Assim, como objetivo geral, pretende-se estudar e analisar os corantes naturais nativos dessa região e suas respectivas aplicações com vistas ao desenvolvimento dessa produção baseada em tecelagem manual, processo fundamental para a população da região e experiência importante como referência em políticas públicas locais e regionais / This is a case study from the design approach of textile surfaces on handloom weaving, natural dyes based in the Cerrado region of Carmo Rio Claro-FURNAS. It is observed that context a major application of traditional handloom technology coupled with the use of fibers.This know-how, transmitted orally, represents significant fraction of the regional economy and to a large extent, cultural identity in this context. However, there is the loss of specific knowledge related to the use of natural dyes based on the Cerrado vegetables, although extant species in this context. As general objective, we intend to study and analyze the natural dyes natives of this region and their applications with a view to developing this production based on manual weaving, a process critical to the region\'s population as a reference and important experience in local and regional public policies

A presente tese trata da concepção de projeto sustentável para a cidade - o caso de Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. A hipótese que se coloca é que o desenho ambiental urbano, em um projeto sustentável, além de responder às necessidades básicas da cidade de habitar, locomover, trabalhar e recrear, promove, também, a conexão sociocultural com a natureza, possibilitando o desenvolvimento da consciência e da identidade cultural de um lugar e de um povo. E, a partir da visão de mundo ecológica, tem o veio d\'água como elemento-chave estruturador do desenho da cidade. É uma abordagem em que a questão reside em colocar a o desenho ambiental urbano no centro da produção da cidade. Em síntese, trata-se de destacar o projeto sustentável como fio condutor da concepção e organização territorial, contrapondo aos modelos funcionais, administrativos e econômicos, cuja aplicação tem levado o ambiente urbano a processos intensos de degradação, de fragmentação e de insustentabilidade. Tem como premissa filosófica a dimensão ecológica, que estabelece os pilares para o pensamento sobre a organização das cidades. Nessa dimensão, está a visão de mundo ecológica, os princípios das teorias não lineares (Morin, 1990), a sustentabilidade e a ética ecológica. A partir dessa visão, a dimensão ambiental (McHarg, 1969; Spirn, 1995; Hough, 2004) se estrutura em dois eixos de análise: o ambiente biótico e o urbano. No biótico, destacam-se os links ecológicos como mediadores das interconexões ecológicas em que a água é elemento fundamental a existência da vida. No urbano, os vínculos antropossociais são assinalados dos como estruturantes da dinâmica urbana e por meio da identidade cultural e urbanidade, em que o sentido de pertencimento e pertinência é fortalecido pela condição de conectividade e pela qualidade da imagem urbana estabelecidas na dimensão da teia urbana. O estudo da cidade de Uberlândia visa aplicar tais premissas teóricas na leitura ambiental e, ao mesmo tempo, auxiliar no processo de instrumentalização do processo projetual do projeto sustentável para a cidade. / This thesis deals with the conception of sustainable design for the city - the case study of Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. The hypothesis that arises is that the urban environmental design in sustainable design, beyond responding the basic needs of the city as live, move, work and leisure, promotes also the socio and cultural connection with nature, enabling the development of consciousness and the cultural identity. And, from the ecological world-view, has the watercourses as a key design, an element-key structuring the city design conception. This is an approach in which consist to centralize the urban environmental design in central urban space production. In summary, it is to highlight the sustainable design as a conductor of territorial conception and organization, contrasting the functional models, administrative and economics ones, which has been taken the urban environmental to intense process of degradation, fragmentation and un-sustainability. It has as philosophical premise the ecology dimension, which establishes the cornerstones to the thinking about cities organization. In this dimension there is the ecological world-view, the non linear theories (Morin, 1990), the sustainability and ecological ethic. From this vision, the environmental dimension (McHarg, 1969; Spirn, 1995; Hough, 2004) structures itself in two axes analysis: the biotic and urban environment. At biotic ambient, it highlights the ecological links as mediators of ecological interconnections in that the water is the fundamental element to existence of life. At urban ambient, the social and cultural ties are highlighted as structures of urban dynamic and through the culture identity and urbanity, in which the sense of belonging and relevance is strengthened by the connectivity condition and by the urban image established in the urban web dimension. The case study of Uberlandia city aims to apply such theoretical premises in reading the environmental panorama and, at the same time, to assist the instrumentalization of city sustainable design process.

A presente pesquisa propõe-se discutir as práticas culturais no que tange à questão do acesso, tomando o espaço do museu e o campo museológico como objetos. Investiga-se, aqui, em que medida as questões econômicas, associadas às identitárias, atuam como possíveis vetores motivacionais de tais práticas culturais. Constituiu nosso ponto de partida o interesse em entender de que maneira o binômio cultura x identidade, em decorrência de sua gestão na instituição museal, intervém ou não no alargamento das distâncias entre esses equipamentos culturais que são os museus e demandas sociais específicas, assim como de que maneira converge para a edificação de fronteiras intangíveis mediadas pelas identidades culturais. Como extensão disso, serão investigadas as possíveis barreiras materiais e semânticas, compreendidas pela geografia, pela arquitetura, pelo discurso curatorial e pela mediação, que podem potencializar ou comprometer o acesso ao museu, analisando tais variáveis de forma crítica, transversal e interdisciplinar. A Pinacoteca do Estado foi escolhida como locus de estudo, onde foram confrontadas as categorias de análise citadas acima, nesse cenário - o museu, que se pressupõe ser um espaço de representação social - com o intuito de potencializar o seu caráter, que deve ser plural e apto a estabelecer um processo dialógico com diferentes tipos de público por meio de seu acervo, de modo que os diferentes interlocutores atuem como protagonistas na construção desse diálogo como um processo dialético. Para tanto, o museu será tomado como campo de cultura e analisado a partir de uma perspectiva socioeconômica e ideológica, sendo sempre compreendido como um sistema de ação contínua e interarticulada que deve visar uma produção de conhecimento aprazível e fluída, e que se materializa em práticas cotidianas. / This research discusses the cultural practices, assessing the issue of access, and adopting the space of the museum and the museological field as objects. It investigates to what extent the economic issues, associated with identity issues, act as potential motivational vectors of these practices. It is guided by an interest in understanding in how the binomial culture x identity, as a result of the management of the museological institution, does or does not intervene in the broadening of the distances between these cultural facilities and specific social demands, as well as converges towards the building of intangible borders mediated by cultural identities. AS an extension of that, the possible material and semantic barriers that may or may not potentiate access shall be investigated, barriers such as those constituted by geography, architecture, curatorial discourse and mediation, which may potentialize or compromise the access to the museum, analyzing such variables critically, transversely and inter-disciplinarily. Thus, the State\'s Pinacoteca was adopted as a study locus, where were confronted the categories of analysis mentioned above - in this scenario which is assumed to be a space of social representation - in order to strengthen its character, that should be plural and able to establish a dialogic process with different kinds of public by means of its collections, so that this public acts as protagonist on the construction of this dialogue as a dialectical process. For such, the museum will be considered as a space of culture, analyzed in a socioeconomic and ideological perspective, and understood as a system of continuous and inter-articulated action aiming at a pleasant and fluid production of knowledge that is embodied in everyday practices.