I apply enchantment theory to William Gibson's Neuromancer and several works by the Japanese SF author Masaki Goro to reveal shared assumptions about Japan as the locus of an emergent techno-social hybridity. Both Gibson and Masaki register signs of widespread disenchantment stemming from an increasingly technologically advanced society with a ruthlessly efficient take on capitalism. However, they mobilize their portrayals to different ends. I demonstrate that the authors diverge in their assessments of a technologically-mediated reenchantment. I also argue that the authors' use of conventions from hard-boiled fiction performs several functions. First, it ironically highlights the impossibility of nostalgia in such a future world, where the concept of home is divested of stability. Second, it evinces an anxiety over the transition from individualistic subjectivity to decentered posthumanity. Third, it reinforces the theme of the supplantation of the traditional nation-state by hyper-capitalist forms.

<p><p>Political disenchantment and detachment is proven to be growing in well established democracies. This development brings along concerning behavior regarding general political participation. Fewer citizens participate in elections, parties are losing members, and the trust in politicians is steadily decreasing. IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) has been registering voter turnout worldwide for the last 60 years and their publications show a decline in voter participation since the 1980s.</p><p>During the same period of time another development has caught attention, namely the fast progress of the medium Internet. The new generation of Internet functions is called Web 2.0 and allows users not only to create content, but also to interact with each other.</p><p>This dissertation aims to explore the possibilities emerging when integrating Web 2.0 in political processes. To study this, a case study approach is used and participatory budgeting is the chosen case. Effects on political disenchantment are analyzed from the perspective of Robert Dahl’s democratic criteria.</p><p>The analysis underlines the importance of making political processes more accessible to the citizens, e.g. by supplying online functions for political contribution. Several signs indicate an expanded integration of Web 2.0 functions, which might lead to a turning point for political disenchantment. However, the result also shows that other factors, such as composition of participants, and conditions of usage should to be taken in consideration while increasing the online dependency.</p></p>

Submitted by Ana Paula Garcia null (anaapaula.garcia@hotmail.com) on 2016-03-03T16:21:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO 2.pdf: 902393 bytes, checksum: e073112cda0eb34b6dd1a082984a4e9c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Juliano Benedito Ferreira (julianoferreira@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-03-04T17:37:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 garcia_ap_me_ibilce.pdf: 902393 bytes, checksum: e073112cda0eb34b6dd1a082984a4e9c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-04T17:37:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 garcia_ap_me_ibilce.pdf: 902393 bytes, checksum: e073112cda0eb34b6dd1a082984a4e9c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho tem como proposta analisar as tensões entre as imagens do Eu e da modernidade, a partir das representações da cidade, da modernização e dos homens modernos, na poética de Álvaro de Campos, evidenciando o permanente sentimento de decadência presente em toda a obra desse heterônimo de Fernando Pessoa. Partindo do entendimento da modernidade como uma experiência iniciada com o processo de modernização e caracterizada, principalmente, por ser uma vivência que ―nos despeja a todos num turbilhão de permanente desintegração e mudança, de luta e contradição, de ambiguidade e angústia‖ (BERMAN, 2011, p. 24), olharemos para a figura de Álvaro de Campos como a representação de um sujeito moderno e reflexivo. Ao fazê-lo, levaremos em conta a instabilidade do homem nesse contexto, desprendendo-nos das organizações da obra do engenheiro, geralmente em fases, feitas pela crítica pessoana. Assim, o propósito é mostrar que as formas de expressão modificam-se a cada poema, mas permanece, por toda a poética, a representação do desencantamento do mundo e o sentimento decadente do homem diante dele. / This dissertation aims to analyze the tension between the images of the subject and modernity, based on the representations of the city, modernization, and modern men, in the poetics of Alvaro de Campos, highlighting the lingering feeling of decadence present in this Fernando Pessoa heteronym‘s oeuvre. Based on the understanding of modernity as an experience started with the modernization process and characterized mainly by being an experience that ―throws us all into a turmoil of permanent disintegration and change, struggle and contradiction, ambiguity and anguish‖ (BERMAN, 2011, p. 24), we will read the figure of Álvaro de Campos as representative of a modern and reflective subject. In doing so, we will consider the instability of man in that context, not taking into account the traditional organization of the engineer´s work made, usually in phases, by criticism on Pessoa. Thus, our purpose is to demonstrate that the ways of expression are modified on each poem, but what remains throughout this poetry is the representation of the disenchantment of the world and man‘s decadent feeling in face of this world.

Values are inherent within cultures, relationships, and many other systems, however, little study has been done on the extent to which individuals may explicitly agree with the metaphysical assumptions that much of psychological science relies upon. Psychological science, which uses scientific methodology, is a trusted source of knowledge for many students. Scientific methodology is conceptually linked to assumptions of naturalism, which makes claims about the truth of reality. These naturalistic assumptions pertain to ideas of disenchantment, which describe the world as free from any transcendent quality. These same ideas have become popular among people of the Western world and are foundational to the worldview of secularism. Accessing whether, and to what extent, individuals explicitly agree or disagree with ideas of disenchantment inherent within secularism may help to better understand relationships between cultural, educational, and spiritual beliefs, and the underlying presumptions of psychological science. A measure of 30 items in length was created in order to evaluate the extent to which individuals agree with statements about some of the foundational assumptions of secularism as it relates to naturalism. A random sample of online participants (N=395) completed the items through an online survey platform. A 1-factor model provided sufficient statistical fit for the data, suggesting that items appeared to support the idea that this measure addresses attitudes of secularism, however no claims on the validity of the measure in the current study can be made. Suggestions for future study are provided.

This thesis intends to define Christian hope in the context of the author’s grappling with disenchantment in his own spiritual journey during the COVID-19 pandemic. This thesis will first analyze conceptions of Christian hope put forth by Augustine and Hans Urs Von Balthasar. It will then compare them by analyzing the personal and communal dimensions of hope. The analysis of the two theologians will rely on historical surveys of hope from their respective time periods as well as examinations of their own periods of disenchantment. This thesis will identify hope as harmonizing for both individuals and humankind writ large to God; this harmony has soteriological implications for the next life after this one for individual Christians, the larger Christian community, and the world at large.

This report analyzes the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God)—a Brazilian neo-Pentecostal church—by its capacity to enchant everyday life in modern, disenchanted worlds. It provides a history of the church, a cultural biography of its founder, and a description of the church’s demonology and ritual life. It argues that through ritual performance, members come to embody the church’s discourse of biblical sacrifice. This process enchants their lives and sanctifies their participation in modern, disenchanted institutions such as late capitalism and medical science. It further argues that previous scholarship has interpreted neo-Pentecostal churches from an implicitly ethical perspective that is rooted in Western modernity. This perspective, in turn, has led to unwarranted dismissiveness toward church members’ self-reports of the empowerment they experience through their religious life. / text

Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-27T13:49:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Helyda Di Oliveira.pdf: 531543 bytes, checksum: 905d07eb9a6271ccae96f40e070e5f35 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-03-23 / The context of the modern society is based on disenchantment and reenchantment. Disenchantment, caused by the extreme rationality, promoter of the secularization that controls the human being by the super valorization of the reason of the science, hindering him of the transcendent and of the mystery that exists in his life, favoring the disenchantment. Reenchantment emerged by the necessity of remeaning the life, through the rethinking of the values related to the sacred, propitiating a new meeting with the magic and the transcendent, promoter factors of reenchantment. In the antecedent period to the secularization, the sacred was searched and lived in religious rituals; nowadays, in the modern times, it is lsearched in a diffuse way and not necessarily institutional. In the context of modernity, the sacred is presented in the New Age Moviment that is characterized as a phenomenon that corresponds the post-traditional religiosity with the notion of a phenomenon that matches a new religious perception . The field of observation and search occurred in Holistic AgapeCircle, in Goiânia. The purpose of this work is to outline the both sides of a process that arises in modern life. If there is disenchantment, is because, in some point inthe past, there was the enchantment. / O contexto da sociedade moderna é de desencanto e reencanto. Desencanto, causado pela extrema racionalidade, promotora da secularização que domina o ser humano através da super valorização da razão e da ciência, tolhendo-o do transcendente e do mistério que há em sua vida, favorecendo o desencantamento. Reencanto aflorado pela necessidade de ressignificar a vida, através do repensar de valores relacionados ao sagrado, propiciando um reencontro com a magia e com o transcendente, fatores promotores de reencanto. No período antecedente à secularização, o sagrado era buscado e vivenciado em rituais religioso; agora, na modernidade, ele é buscado de maneira difusa e não necessariamente institucional. Na modernidade, o sagrado se apresenta no Movimento Nova Era caracterizado como religiosidade pós-tradicional com a noção de um fenômeno que corresponde a uma nova consciência religiosa . O campo de observação e pesquisa ocorreu no Círculo Holístico Ágape, em Goiânia. O objetivo deste trabalho é esboçar os dois lados de um processo que eclode na vida moderna. Se há desencanto, é porque algum dia já houve o encanto.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:27:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pedro Secches.pdf: 409597 bytes, checksum: 552b1fa3062f62932ec902dd43aada65 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-08 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This dissertation s objective is to explore, within Max Weber s work, the concept of rationalization and its importance in the formation of the modern world. As proposed, the process of rationalization is presented as an historic process common to every civilization. A process that, regarding the western civilization, has a distinct peculiarity: the western formal rationality. Which, according to Weber, is the responsible for the formation of the modern world. However, the objective of this research is not limited to describing the formation of the modern world from the development of the western rationalized civilization, but also consists of discussing the possible effects of this process in modern society, according to the weberian critic. In order to do so, it is proposed, firstly, to analyze the author s thought regarding the historical period in which he lived, and also regarding the thinkers that served as influence and/or inspiration on the creation of his own critical analysis. Finally, the concept of rationalization is explored from three different, but complementary, approaches: 1) rationalization as an historic process, 2) the peculiar rationalization of the West in the formation of the modern world, and 3) Weber s critic of the rationalized modern world / Esta dissertação tem por objetivo explorar, na obra de Max Weber, o conceito de racionalização e sua importância para a formação do mundo moderno. Na pesquisa proposta, o processo de racionalização é apresentado como um processo histórico comum a todas as civilizações. Um processo que, no que diz respeito à civilização ocidental, apresenta uma peculiaridade distinta: a racionalidade formal ocidental. Peculiaridade essa, segundo Weber, responsável pela formação do mundo moderno. No entanto, o objetivo desta pesquisa não se limita a descrever a formação do mundo moderno à partir do desenvolvimento da civilização ocidental racionalizada, mas consiste também em discutir os possíveis efeitos desse processo na sociedade moderna, segundo a crítica weberiana. Para tanto, propõe-se, primeiramente, analisar o pensamento do autor com relação ao período histórico em que viveu e com relação aos pensadores que serviram de influência e/ou inspiração na criação da sua própria análise crítica. Por fim, o conceito de racionalização é explorado em três abordagens distintas, porém complementares: 1) a racionalização como processo histórico, 2) a racionalização peculiar do Ocidente na formação do mundo moderno, e 3) a crítica de Weber ao mundo moderno racionalizado

This dissertation offers a novel argument for the democratic importance of political parties and campaign finance. Taking issue with the United States Supreme Court's campaign finance and political party jurisprudence, which tends to value campaign spending and party activity for the role that they play in expanding voter choice, my account seeks, instead, to emphasize the role that these forms of political participation can play in countering the sense of political disenchantment which characterizes the political attitudes of a large number of American citizens today. I argue in this project that by subjecting their preferences to continuous contestation and challenge, parties and campaign finance can help instill an appreciation for compromise, as well as tolerance for political diversity and disagreement, among the disenchanted. This, in turn, has many beneficial implications for enabling good governance on the part of the American state. In the course of the dissertation, I also specify the many ways in which contemporary parties and campaign finance regimes need to be reformed in order for them to be able to perform this role. Questions of institutional design thus occupy an extremely prominent place in the project. / Government

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:44:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 1182245 bytes, checksum: e7a82f84959016b65f3f62063c1d2bac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-01 / Blindness, written by Jose Saramago, has causing many research interests since its publication in 1995. Considering the novel as a socially symbolic narrative, an undeniable characteristic of the book is related to the very unique time in which the story occurs: the end of the millennium. On the eve of the twenty-first century, the society represented by the Portuguese writer has not learned to deal with the remaining problems from the Modern Age. The scientificism inherited from earlier centuries as well as the utopian hope that reason would provide the world with a new meaning, is one of the ways in which the process of disenchantment of the world develops itself in the last centuries. Since we notice that the world is in a heightened stage of this process, possibly without return, we see the novel as a deep Saramago criticism to the social model of capitalism: out of this parameter there is not a possible idea of civilization to the characters and the fear of barbarism practices emerges. Individuals present in Blindness when beset by the white evil do not show humanity and dignity as we see in the current moral social standards. This work aims to analyze, based on the weberian sociology, how the termination of a disenchanted world is constructed in the novel, questioning the possibilities for a re-enchantment through the experience of blindness and inquiring the motivations to the fact that the doctor s wife is the only visionary remaining in a world of blind people. / Ensaio sobre a cegueira, de José Saramago, vem suscitando desde sua publicação em 1995, inúmeros interesses de pesquisa. Tomando a obra como uma narrativa socialmente simbólica, uma das facetas inegáveis está justamente relacionada ao tempo muito singular no qual se insere: o de fim de milênio. Às vésperas do século XXI, a sociedade ainda não aprendeu a lidar com problemas e circunstâncias muito particulares provindos da modernidade. O cientificismo herdado de séculos anteriores, bem como a utópica esperança de que a razão dotaria o mundo de novo sentido, configura uma das vias do processo de desencantamento do mundo em curso há alguns séculos. Mediante a percepção de que o mundo encena uma etapa intensificada deste processo, possivelmente sem volta, percebemos na obra analisada uma profunda crítica saramaguiana ante o agrilhoamento social ao modelo capitalista: fora desse parâmetro não há civilização possível para os personagens e o temor de um barbarismo emerge. Em Ensaio sobre a cegueira, os indivíduos, quando assolados pelo mal-branco, não atestam os caracteres de humanidade e dignidade correntes nos padrões sociais éticos e morais, mas se entregam às situações mais abjectas. Os objetivos da pesquisa se configuram, portanto, em analisar, a partir da vertente sociológica weberiana, de que forma a denúncia deste mundo desencantado é feita na obra, verificando quais as possibilidades de um reencantamento mediante a experiência da cegueira e cogitando respostas ao fato de a mulher do médico permanecer como a única visionária restante.