NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are digital assets representing real-world objects like art, music, videos, gaming items, etc., originally, they reside on a blockchain indicating a certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership deeming the uniqueness and scarcity of commodities. They have shown astonishing market attention and inconceivable price margins are being set for certain NFTs. The NFT phenomenon being in a nascent state, not much research has been conducted from the standpoint of value from the users and this thesis tries to fill the gaps in that area from a socio-economic point of view. The use of NFTs is on a rise with several companies delving in and speculated to grow even bigger bringing a transformative shift in the way businesses work today, using the blockchain technology NFTs are heralded as a new way to define ownership and property constructs. Going forward it is expected that they could be a gateway to a tokenised future through a new form of value assessment of commodities and transitioning economic functions. This dissertation ventures on to look at the value perspective from the masses on how they shape an individual's viewpoint. Through a classical economic intervention of theories as discoursed in the literature review, this research tries to infer nuances of users employing a qualitative study whereby unstructured interviews were the source for data collection and using a thematic analysis various themes are derived which are pointed out in the discussion section. The analysis gives us an indication that many people are indulged in the NFT space as a source of profit maximisation and several indications are portrayed towards community building as a means of value creation. The qualitative nature of the study relies on interpretivism and a radical structuralist paradigm shedding light on the thought process behind an individual’s behaviour, trying to understand the context of ‘value’ as perceived by the people.

In sports discourse, the relationship between athletics and technology is often paradoxical. On the one hand, modern sports rely on technology at every level, from training and tracking of players to the equipment and apparel used by athletes to the game strategies and playing fields themselves. Nearly all of these technologies are intended to increase athletic performance on some level. And yet, certain performance enhancement technologies can be criticized for being antithetical to the spirit of sports, which is framed as being a strictly natural and pure human endeavor. Using a rhetorical-cultural methodological approach, popular sports discourse is analyzed to investigate how arguments in contested spaces between sports and technologies get (re)negotiated and (re)articulated to fit within a sports social language that emphasizes "pure" and "natural" ideals of sport. This often results in a dichotomy where the sport/technology relationship is either black boxed, thus being subsumed in the sport social language and becoming transparent and the relationships unarticulated, or the technology is regulated out of the sport through rules and bans. The reason for this articulation is attributed in large part to the deep humanism embedded in the sport social language. How a shift to a posthuman perspective would effect sports discourse is explored. These conclusions about underlying values in sports discourse lead to the formation of a new theoretical framework called disciplinary mythologies. Building off of Foucault's disciplinary power, Scott's disciplinary rhetorics, and Barthe's mythologies, disciplinary mythologies are discrete units of persuasion that both construct and constitute claims by drawing upon layered narratives and shifting associations that lose their context when entering the realm of myth. Two specific disciplinary mythologies are discussed—the level-playing-field topos and the nostalgia enthymeme—and it is shown how sports discourse often draws upon them to shape arguments and actions.

This dissertation interprets how two antebellum American works of fiction, Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno and Martin R. Delany’s Blake, represent the relationship between conjuring and resistance to oppression. It is unclear how we should conceive of this relationship: on the one hand, historical slave conspiracies and revolts in the Atlantic world demonstrated the unequivocal power of conjuring for assembling collectives; on the other hand, many slaves who turned to conjuring to ease their suffering later dismissed the practice as nonsense in their autobiographies. My close-readings of these two texts are supported by a wide-range of historical and cultural materials, including the vast literature on conjuring, the Peruvian discourse on the saya y manto, and the discourse on fetishism. I conclude that acts of conjuring drive plot and explain a character’s actions or inactions under circumstances in which resistance to oppression involves obtaining or preserving freedom for presently or formerly enslaved people. In addition, this dissertation provides a method for reading conjuring in Benito Cereno and interprets a form of conjuring in Blake that readers have neglected.

This thesis examines the political thought of Achille Mbembe. It deploys decolonial critical analysis to unmask traces of coloniality with regard to the African existential conditions foregrounded in the conception of the African subject, its subjection, and subjectivity. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is decolonial epistemic perspective—the epistemic intervention that serves as a lens to understand Mbembe’s work and—that is the theoretical foundation outside the Euro-North American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. Decolonial epistemic perspective in this thesis is deployed to expose three kinds of coloniality in Mbembe’s work, namely: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of being. The thrust of this thesis is that Mbembe’s political thought is inadequate for the understanding of the African existential condition in that it does not fully take coloniality into account. In order to acknowledge the existence of coloniality through decolonial critical analysis, the political thought of Mbembe is examined in relation to modes of self-writing, power in the postcolony, the politics of violence in Africa, Frantz Fanon’s political thought, and the idea of South Africa as major themes undertaken in this thesis. Decolonial critical analysis deals with foundational questions that have relevance to the existential condition of the African subject and the manner in which such an existential crisis can be brought to an end. These foundational questions confront issues like—who is speaking or writing, from where, for whom and why? This thesis reveals that Mbembe is writing and thinking Africa from outside the problematic ontology of the African subject and, as such, Mbembe precludes any form of African subjectivity that challenges the Euro-North American canon. This then reveals that Mbembe is not critical of coloniality and this has the implications in that subjection is left on the wayside and not accounted for. Having explored the genealogy, trajectory and horisons of decolonial critical analysis to understand the political thought of Mbembe, this thesis highlights that it is essential to take a detour through the shifting of the geography of reason. Herein lies the originality of this thesis, and it is here that Africa is thought from within a standpoint of decolonial critical analysis and not Africa that is thought from the Euro-North American canon. Therefore, the shifting of the geography of reason is necessary for the authorisation of the subjectivity of the African subject in order to combat subjection. / Political Sciences / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Politics)

Cette dissertation traite la danse comme une catégorie d’analyse permettant de réorienter ou de ré-chorégraphier les théories postcoloniales du corps. Mon étude montre qu’ Edward Said, par exemple, décrit la danse seulement à travers le regard impérial, et que Homi Bhabha et Gayatri Spivak négligent complètement le rôle de la dance dans la construction de la subjectivité postcoloniale. Mon étude explique que Stavros Karayanni récemment explore la danse masculine et féminine comme espaces de résistance contre la domination coloniale. Toutefois, l’analyse de Karayanni met l’accent seulement sur le caractère insaisissable de la danse qui produit une ambigüité et une ambivalence dans le regard du sujet impériale. Contrairement aux approches de Said et de Karayanni, ma dissertation explore la danse comme un espace ou le corps du sujet colonisé chorégraphie son histoire collective que l’amnésie coloniale ne cesse de défigurer au moyen de l’acculturation et de marchandisation. Je soutiens que la danse nous offre la possibilité de concevoir le corps colonisé non seulement dans son ambiguïté, comme le souligne Karayanni, mais aussi dans son potentiel de raconter corporellement sa mémoire collective de l’intérieur de la domination impériale. Ma dissertation soutient que les catégories de l’ambiguïté et de l’insaisissabilité mystifient et fétichisent le corps dansant en le décrivant comme un élément évasif et évanescent. Ma dissertation inclut plusieurs traditions culturelles de manière à réorienter la recherche ethnographique qui décrit la dance comme articulation codée par une culture postcoloniale spécifique. Mon étude montre comment le corps colonisé produit un savoir culturel à partir de sa différence. Cette forme de savoir corporelle présente le corps colonisé en tant que sujet et non seulement objet du désir colonial. Méthodologiquement, cette dissertation rassemble des théories occidentales et autochtones de la danse. Mon étude considère aussi les théories postcoloniales du corps dansant à partir des perspectives hétérosexuelles et homosexuelles. En outre, mon étude examine les manières dont les quelles les théories contemporaines de la danse, postulées par Susan Foster et André Lepecki par exemple, peuvent être pertinentes dans le contexte postcolonial. Mon étude explore également le potentiel politique de l’érotique dans la danse à travers des représentations textuelles et cinématographiques du corps. L’introduction de ma dissertation a trois objectifs. Premièrement, elle offre un aperçu sur les théories postcoloniales du corps. Deuxièmement, elle explique les manières dans lesquelles on peut appliquer des philosophies contemporaines de la danse dans le contexte postcoloniale. Troisièmement, l’introduction analyse le rôle de la dance dans les œuvres des écrivains postcoloniales célèbres tels que Frantz Fanon, Wole Soyinka, Arundhati Roy, et Wilson Harris. Le Chapitre un remet en question les théories de l’ambiguïté et de l’insaisissabilité de la danse à partir de la théorie de l’érotique postulé par Audre Lorde. Ce chapitre examine le concept de l’érotique dans le film Dunia de Jocelyne Saab. Le Chapitre deux ouvre un dialogue entre les théories occidentales et autochtones de la danse à partir d’une étude d’un roman de Tomson Highway. Le Chapitre trois examine comment l’écrivain Trinidadien Earl Lovelace utilise la danse de carnaval comme espace culturel qui reflète l’homogénéité raciale et l’idéologie nationaliste à Trinidad et en les remettant également en question. / Classical texts of postcolonial theory rarely address the embodied expression of dance as they examine the colonial body only through the imperial discourses about the Orient (Said), the construction of the Subaltern subject (Spivak), and the ambivalent desire of the colonial gaze (Bhabha). The Cyprian theorist and dancer Stavros Stavrou Karayanni has emphasised the centrality of dance as a key category of analysis through which discourses of resistance can be articulated from the perspective of the colonial heterosexual and queer body. However, Karayanni adopts the psychoanalytic method according to which the dancing body of the colonised subject has an ambivalent effect upon the Western traveller and / or coloniser who both desires and derides this body. In contrast to this approach, my study examines dance as a space in which the colonial body choreographs its collective history which colonial amnesia suppresses so as to de-historicise colonised subjects and disfigure their cultures. Departing from Frantz Fanon’s emphasis on the relevance of dance in colonial studies, I argue that the colonial body choreographs its collective memories in dance and prompts us to rethink hegemonic discourses of postcolonial identity formation that revolve around ambivalence and elusiveness. I borrow the notion of “choreographing history” from the Western contemporary discipline of dance studies which has integrated cultural studies since mid 1980s and influenced postcolonial inquiry of dance over the last decade. I include various cultural traditions in my project so as to re-direct today’s predominantly ethnographic research which describes dance as an encoded articulation of culture in specific postcolonial societies. I also include different cultural traditions to show that while choreographing silenced memories in various historical experiences of colonial violence, the dancing body allows us to construct discourses of resistance in ways that postcolonial theory has not addressed before. The re-choreography of postcolonial theories of the body, as developed in this dissertation, articulates an ethical imperative because it shows how the subaltern body not only choreographs memories that colonial amnesia silences but also produces cultural knowledge with a difference. Methodologically, this study brings together Western and indigenous theories of dance as well as postcolonial theories of the dancing body from both heterosexual and queer perspectives. My study discusses Susan Foster and André Lepecki’s contemporary theories of dance and the body in the context of postcolonial theories of Oriental dance and eroticism. It also examines the socially and politically transformative potential of the erotic in dance through textual and cinematic representations of the body. My study equally opens a dialogue between Western and indigenous theories of dance in the context of Canadian indigenous literary work of Tomson Highway. A critical examination of Trinidad Carnival and Calypso in a novel by Earl Lovelace demonstrates that dance is a central paradigm of analysis for a postcolonial critique of the body and the categories of identity that inscribe it.

Cette étude porte sur un type de cinéma italien appelé giallo. Ayant connu une forte popularité au tournant des années 1970 auprès d’un public dit vernaculaire, ces thrillers horrifiques sont encore aujourd’hui réputés pour leurs scènes de meurtre sanglantes et spectaculaires mettant à l’honneur un assassin ganté. Ce mémoire se propose de faire le point sur ces séquences de meurtre et surtout d’expliquer la façon particulière avec laquelle elles sont mises en scène. Pour bien y parvenir, nous en fournissons tout au long des exemples et les soumettons à une analyse détaillée. Notre approche analytique se veut essentiellement formaliste. Il s’agit de déconstruire ces scènes violentes afin d’en révéler certains des rouages. Dans un premier temps, nous rappelons quelques notions fondamentales du cinéma gore et nous penchons sur la problématique que pose invariablement la représentation de la mort au grand écran. Ceci nous permet ensuite d’observer plus amplement comment les réalisateurs du giallo traitent ces scènes d’homicide sur un mode excessif et poétique. Enfin, le rapport érotique à la violence entretenu dans ces scènes est considéré. Cela nous donne notamment l’occasion de nous intéresser à la figure du mannequin (vivant et non vivant) et de voir de quelles manières les cinéastes peuvent par son entremise transmettre un sentiment d’inquiétante étrangeté. / This study aims to explore giallo, a specific type of Italian cinema. Very popular with a vernacular audience at the turn of the 1970s, these horrific thrillers remain notorious for their bloody and spectacular murder scenes showcasing a gloved killer. With this thesis, we seek to review these murder sequences with a focus on explaining the particular way in which they are staged, shot and edited. To fully achieve this, we provide examples from these scenes and submit them to a detailed analysis. Our analytical approach is essentially formalist. We wish to deconstruct these violent scenes and reveal some of their inner workings. At first, we recall some basic notions of gore cinema and look at the problems that the depiction of death on the silver screen invariably raises. This allows us to see how giallo filmmakers treat these murder scenes in an excessive and poetic mode. Lastly, the erotic aspect of violence presented in these scenes is considered. This gives us the opportunity to focus on the figure of the model/mannequin (living and non-living) and see how filmmakers can use it to transmit an uncanny feeling.

This thesis examines the political thought of Achille Mbembe. It deploys decolonial critical analysis to unmask traces of coloniality with regard to the African existential conditions foregrounded in the conception of the African subject, its subjection, and subjectivity. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is decolonial epistemic perspective—the epistemic intervention that serves as a lens to understand Mbembe’s work and—that is the theoretical foundation outside the Euro-North American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. Decolonial epistemic perspective in this thesis is deployed to expose three kinds of coloniality in Mbembe’s work, namely: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of being. The thrust of this thesis is that Mbembe’s political thought is inadequate for the understanding of the African existential condition in that it does not fully take coloniality into account. In order to acknowledge the existence of coloniality through decolonial critical analysis, the political thought of Mbembe is examined in relation to modes of self-writing, power in the postcolony, the politics of violence in Africa, Frantz Fanon’s political thought, and the idea of South Africa as major themes undertaken in this thesis. Decolonial critical analysis deals with foundational questions that have relevance to the existential condition of the African subject and the manner in which such an existential crisis can be brought to an end. These foundational questions confront issues like—who is speaking or writing, from where, for whom and why? This thesis reveals that Mbembe is writing and thinking Africa from outside the problematic ontology of the African subject and, as such, Mbembe precludes any form of African subjectivity that challenges the Euro-North American canon. This then reveals that Mbembe is not critical of coloniality and this has the implications in that subjection is left on the wayside and not accounted for. Having explored the genealogy, trajectory and horisons of decolonial critical analysis to understand the political thought of Mbembe, this thesis highlights that it is essential to take a detour through the shifting of the geography of reason. Herein lies the originality of this thesis, and it is here that Africa is thought from within a standpoint of decolonial critical analysis and not Africa that is thought from the Euro-North American canon. Therefore, the shifting of the geography of reason is necessary for the authorisation of the subjectivity of the African subject in order to combat subjection. / Political Sciences / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Politics)

INTRODUÇÃO: Pacientes com diagnóstico de parafilias e de transtornos relacionados às parafilias ocupam a atenção pública e clínica por se tratarem de indivíduos potencialmente inconvenientes, causadores de problemas à sociedade e a si próprios. Caracteristicamente, apresentam padrões invulgares de comportamento sexual e distinguem-se pela escolha de parcerias ou de contextos sexuais incomuns. JUSTIFICATIVA: O tratamento atual leva em consideração comportamentos, fantasias e necessidades sexuais parafílicas e procura modificá-los por meio de psicoterapia cognitivocomportamental, medicação antidepressiva e antiandrogênica. Apenas a supressão destes comportamentos tem se mostrado insatisfatória e ainda apresenta altas taxas de reincidência. Não há resultados publicados sobre a efetividade de um novo tratamento psicoterapêutico, cujo foco esteja voltado para a identificação e a reestruturação da identidade sexual e cujo principal objetivo seja o de promover maior contato destes pacientes com parcerias sexuais convencionais. MÉTODO: A intervenção foi testada por meio de ensaio clínico de tratamento, randomizado, placebo controlado e unicego, realizado com dois grupos paralelos: experimental (N=6) e controle (N=8). Todos os pacientes apresentavam diagnóstico de parafilias e foram medicados com inibidores seletivos da recaptação de serotonina. As intervenções psicoterapêuticas duraram dezesseis semanas com frequência de uma sessão por semana. As mudanças comportamentais foram monitoradas por meio de um diário e as comorbidades psiquiátricas, a qualidade de vida e a adequação social foram avaliadas por meio de escalas psicométricas, nos três períodos do estudo: início, término e seguimento pósintervenção. RESULTADOS: Não houve melhora estatisticamente significante dos escores de depressão, qualidade de vida e adequação social para ambos os grupos. O grupo experimental apresentou tendência de melhor resposta para depressão ao se tomar esta variável de forma categorial. Ambos os grupos apresentaram: maior incapacidade de adequação social (comparados a populações não clínicas); tendência de aumento do estado de ansiedade; melhora clínica global e redução dos índices de gravidade das parafilias. Houve diferenças estatisticamente significantes entre os grupos. Para o grupo experimental: aumento de fantasias e masturbações normofílicas; maior procura por contatos eróticos normofílicos e diminuição de fantasias parafílicas. Porém, houve diminuição de contatos íntimos normofílicos (beijos, abraços e carícias) para este grupo. Houve diferenças estatisticamente significantes intragrupos. Para o grupo experimental: redução de contatos íntimos parafílicos e totais (parafílicos e normofílicos). Para o grupo placebo: aumento de relações sexuais parafílicas e da totalidade das fantasias sexuais (parafílicas e normofílicas). CONCLUSÕES: Os defechos favoráveis observados no grupo de intervenção evidenciaram a importância em se identificar e trabalhar psicoterapeuticamente o impedimento que os parafílicos apresentam de se relacionar com parcerias sexuais normofílicas, uma vez que para o grupo experimental as mudanças positivas observadas no comportamento, fantasias e necessidades sexuais caminharam em direção a padrões convencionais / INTRODUCTION: Patients diagnosed with paraphilia and paraphilia-related disorders have public and medical attention drawn to them because they are potentially disturbing individuals who cause problems to society and to themselves. Typically, they show unusual patterns of sexual behavior and make unusual choices related to sexual partners or sexual contexts. RATIONALE: Current treatment considers paraphilic behaviors, fantasies, and urges, trying to change these symptoms using cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, antidepressants, and anti-androgen medication. The elimination of these behaviors has proved unsatisfactory and still has high recurrence rates. We could not find in the literature any studies on the effectiveness of a new psychotherapeutic treatment focused on identifying and restructuring the patients\' sexual identity to allow for the promotion of contact between these patients and conventional sexual partners. METHOD: We conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled, single-blind clinical trial with two groups: experimental (N = 6) and control (N = 8). All patients were diagnosed with paraphilia and were treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The psychotherapeutic interventions lasted sixteen weeks, and its frequency was one session a week. Behavioral changes were monitored using a diary, whereas psychiatric comorbidities, quality of life, and social adequacy were assessed using psychometric scales in the three study periods: baseline, end, and post-intervention follow-up. RESULTS: There was no significant improvement of depression, quality of life, and social adequacy scores for both groups. The experimental group showed a trend toward better response to depression when we considered this as categorical variable. Both groups showed higher inability of social adequacy (when compared with non-clinical populations); tendency of increased state of anxiety; improvement of overall clinical status, and reduced levels of paraphilia severity. There were statistically significant differences between the groups. The experimental group showed increased frequency of normophilic fantasies and masturbation; increased demand for normophilic erotic contact, and decreased paraphilic fantasies. However, there was a decrease in normophilic intimate contact (kisses, hugs, and caresses) in this group. There were statistically significant intragroup differences. The experimental group had reduced paraphilic and total (paraphilic and normophilic) intimate contact. The placebo group had increased paraphilic sexual intercourse and higher frequency of sexual fantasies (paraphilic and normophilic). CONCLUSIONS: The positive outcomes found in the intervention group showed the importance of psychotherapy in identifying and treating the paraphilic patients\' impediments that prevent them from having relationships with normophilic sexual partners. This was reinforced by the finding that the experimental group showed positive changes in terms of sexual behaviors, fantasies, and urges, which were closer to conventional standards

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:48:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Patrick Rodrigues Andrade.pdf: 1437637 bytes, checksum: 0adc2dee140d02db386fb1bdf2f53b1a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work is structured in two essays on rampant and crisis of capital, and, in the end, some notes as an outline for a critic of underconsumption. The first essay has its central issue the critics elaborated by Rosa Luxemburg to the schemes of social reproduction of Karl Marx, and the interpretation of the author to the meaning of the crisis of capital at the beginning of the 20th century. The first section argues about the theoretical status of the schemes of social reproduction of Marx, the debate surrounding them in the early twentieth century and the analysis undertaken by Rosa Luxemburg in her work The Capital Accumulation (1913). In the second section of this first essay, the analysis focuses on Luxemburg s perspective regarding the crisis of capitalism and her critic of Marx, particularly in terms of a "mismatch" between the schemes of reproduction extended in the second book of Capital and the conception of the capitalist global process of social of the third book. The third section examines some theoretical problems of Luxemburg, presented in earlier sections, under the terms of dialectical logic refined of the notion of "negation of negation", a perspective derived from the Western Marxism, which reaffirms the negative as such. What is questioned is the own conceptual processuality of capital and crisis developed by Karl Marx, a mediation involving the proper relationship between the concept and the non-conceptual. The second essay first discusses the "real abstraction" at the base of the capitalist form of wealth production, which puts dissimilar products in equality and then moves on the sense of the inequality of the same as the distribution rules of surplus-value no longer maintain a direct relationship with the production rules of surplus-value to such an extent that through the transformation of values in prices the value law itself is inverted and the ownership of capital becomes predominant , for how the development of fetishism opens a gap within the capital s profit itself. This essay discusses the commodity fetishism, the fetish of money and finally the capitalist relationship fully reificated in interest-bearing capital, emphasizing, to use a lacanian term, how reality itself has the structure of a fiction. Behind this discussion is the negativity inherent to the capitalist dynamic as a movement of constant resilience and recovery of its contradictions in "higher" levels. The notes, on the end, are limited to comments regarding a current Marxist debate between Michel Husson/Alain Bihr and Francois Chesnais/Louis Gill, however, without great damage, it is possible to extend such considerations, in "old" meaning of "critique of political economy," to the question of the underconsumption within the Marxist tradition, which refers to Rosa Luxemburg (in The Accumulation of Capital), Otto Bauer (in his political testament entitled Between the wars?), Henryk Grossman (in his series of lectures reunited on the volume The law of accumulation and the collapse of the capitalist system), and especially Paul Sweezy (The theory of capitalist development), that marks the end of an intellectual age the "classic tradition" of Marxism / O presente trabalho está estruturado em dois ensaios sobre desmedida e crise do capital, e, ao final, algumas notas como esboço de uma crítica do subconsumismo. O primeiro ensaio tem como assunto central as críticas elaboradas por Rosa Luxemburg aos esquemas de reprodução social de Karl Marx, e a interpretação da autora quanto ao significado das crises do capital no início do séc. XX. A primeira seção discorre a respeito do estatuto teórico dos esquemas de reprodução social de Marx, o debate envolvendo-os no início do século XX e a análise empreendida por Rosa Luxemburg em sua obra A acumulação de Capital (1913). Na segunda seção desse primeiro ensaio, a análise se concentra na perspectiva de Luxemburg a respeito das crises do capitalismo e sua crítica dirigida a Marx, principalmente no que concerne a uma incompatibilidade entre os esquemas de reprodução ampliada do livro segundo de O Capital e a concepção do processo de produção global capitalista do livro terceiro. A terceira seção examina certos problemas teóricos de Luxemburg, apresentados nas seções anteriores, sob o ponto de vista da lógica dialética acrisolada da noção de negação da negação , uma perspectiva oriunda do marxismo ocidental, que reafirma o negativo enquanto tal. O que é posto em questão é a própria processualidade dos conceitos de capital e crise desenvolvidos por Karl Marx, em uma mediação que envolve a própria relação entre o conceito e o não-conceitual. Quanto ao segundo ensaio, discute-se inicialmente a abstração real existente na base da forma capitalista de produção de riqueza, que põe os produtos desiguais em relação de igualdade e, posteriormente, se move no sentido da desigualdade dos iguais de como as regras de distribuição da mais-valia já não guardam relação direta com as regras de produção da mais-valia, a tal ponto que através da transformação dos valores em preços a própria lei do valor se inverte e a propriedade do capital se torna preponderante , para como o desenvolvimento do fetichismo abre uma lacuna no interior do próprio lucro do capital. O ensaio discute o fetichismo da mercadoria, o fetiche do dinheiro e finalmente a relação capitalista plenamente reificada no capital portador de juros, destacando, para usar um termo de Lacan, como a própria realidade tem a estrutura de uma ficção. Por trás dessa discussão está a negatividade inerente à dinâmica do capitalismo enquanto movimento de constante superação e reposição de suas contradições em níveis superiores . As notas se restringem a comentários quanto ao debate marxista atual entre Michel Husson/Alain Bihr e François Chesnais/Louis Gill, todavia, sem grandes prejuízos, é possível estender tais considerações, no velho sentido da crítica da economia política , à questão do subconsumismo no interior da tradição marxista, que remete a Rosa Luxemburg (em sua obra A acumulação de Capital), Otto Bauer (em seu testamento político intitulado Entre duas guerras?), Henryk Grossman (em sua série de palestras reunidas no volume A lei da acumulação e o colapso do sistema capitalista) e especialmente Paul Sweezy (A teoria do desenvolvimento capitalista), sendo que a concepção desse último marca o fim de uma era intelectual a tradição clássica do marxismo

Esta tese tem como objetivo a análise e interpretação do sentido histórico, estético, político e literário das tensões dialéticas expostas na obra do escritor russo Fiodor Dostoiévski. Na primeira parte (tese), Dostoiévski e o fetichismo da forma mercadoria, a análise da obra de Dostoiévski nos leva às tensões e às afinidades eletivas que enredam duas vertentes: a polifonia proposta pelo crítico russo Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), em Problemas da Poética de Dostoiévski (1929/1963), e a dialética materialista, sobretudo a partir da Teoria Estética (1968), do autor frankfurtiano Theodor Adorno (1903-1969). Trata-se de totalizar as aporias do concerto polifônico, de modo que, dialeticamente, o transcurso analítico desvele a mimese imanente da forma mercadoria como o sentido histórico-tautológico da forma dostoievskiana, sobretudo a partir de Memórias do Subsolo (1864). Na segunda parte (antítese), O conteúdo em Dostoiévski como a cicatrização do espírito rumo à utopia?, procuramos estruturar a filosofia da história que transpassa a obra do escritor russo. Os diálogos dostoievskianos envolvendo socialismo e cristianismo nos fazem correlacionar as discussões estabelecidas nesse sentido em Recordações da Casa dos Mortos (1862), Notas de Inverno sobre Impressões de Verão (1863), Memórias do Subsolo (1864), Crime e Castigo (1866), O Idiota (1869), Os Demônios (1872) e, fundamentalmente, em dois capítulos de Os Irmãos Karamázov (1879): A Revolta e O Grande Inquisidor. Ao fim e ao cabo e como um prenúncio de superação (Aufhebung) o conteúdo dostoievskiano da história como o movimento dialético rumo à utopia nos faz colocar em diálogo o conto O sonho de um homem ridículo (1877) com o conceito de cicatrização do espírito, que o filósofo alemão Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831) desenvolve em sua Filosofia da História (1837). / The aim of this dissertation is to analyse and interpret the historical, aesthetic, political and literary meaning of the dialectical tensions exposed in the work of the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. On the first part (thesis), Dostoevsky and the Fetishism of Commodity Form, the analysis of Dostoevskys work takes us to both tensions and elective affinities which intertwine two perspectives: polyphony, as it is proposed by the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), in Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics (1929/1963), and materialist dialectics, mainly from the Aesthetic Theory (1968), by the German author Theodor Adorno (1903-1969). The aim is to totalize the polyphonic concerts aporias, so that the analysis dialectically unveils the immanent mimesis of commodity form as the historical and tautological meaning of Dostoevskys form, mainly from Notes from Underground (1864). On the second part (antithesis), Dostoevskys Content as the Healing of the Spirit towards Utopia?, we try to structure the philosophy of history which is established through the authors work. Dostoevskys dialogues which intertwine socialism and Christianity make us correlate the discussions which are established in Memoirs from the House of the Dead (1862), Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863), Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), The Devils (1872) and, essentially, in two chapters of The Brothers Karamazov (1879): The Revolt and The Grand Inquisitor. Finally and as a harbinger of an overcoming (Aufhebung) Dostoevskys content of history as a dialectical movement towards utopia makes us put into dialogue the short story The dream of a ridiculous man (1877) with the concept of healing of the spirit, which the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) develops in his Philosophy of History (1837).