A dissertação trata de Pau Brasil, de Oswald de Andrade, e Feuilles de Route: I. Le Formose e II. Sao-Paulo, de Blaise Cendrars, e pretende verificar como a cidade de São Paulo - em sua condição particular no contexto da modernidade brasileira - é transformada em matéria poética nessas obras. Em contraponto aos elementos do cosmopolitismo da metrópole, apresenta-se a vida rural no ambiente das fazendas do interior do Estado. Com base na análise das obras, procuro avaliar a poética dos autores em suas relações com a metrópole, considerando ainda temáticas associadas a outras questões da modernidade, como o progresso x a natureza e o tema da viagem. Na recomposição dos projetos poéticos dos autores nas obras estudadas, os desenhos elaborados por Tarsila do Amaral para ambas produções poéticas serão considerados como um ponto-chave. / This dissertation examines Oswald de Andrade´s Pau Brasil, and Blaise Cendrars´ Feuilles de Route: I. Le Formose and II. Sao-Paulo, and intents to verify how São Paulo has been - in its particular condition in the context of Brazilian modernity - transformed in poetic subject in these works. In contrast to the elements of metropolis´ cosmopolitism, presents the rural life in inner state farms. Based on work analysis, I attempt to evaluate the authors´ poetic in their relationship with the metropolis, considering also a subject matter associated to other modernity issues, like progress x nature and the travelling theme. In rearrangement of poetic projects from the authors in the studied works, the drawings created by Tarsila do Amaral for both poetic produtions are considered key-points.

[pt] O estudo investiga a atuação dos pintores-designers das vanguardas modernistas no campo do design têxtil entre 1910 a 1930. Mais precisamente, em suas propostas de defender e incorporar o esforço progressista, econômico-tecnológico da civilização industrial e por outro lado a busca de uma aproximação maior entre as artes consideradas maiores e sua integração à produção econômica. Outrossim, parte da perspectiva de que esses objetos de design podem ser tratados como evidências históricas, como cultura material, e nos podem falar desde a sua concepção, sua comercialização e seu uso, do papel do designer-artista no momento em que a arte atuou no desenvolvimento de bens simbólicos no sentido de produzir riqueza industrial. A outra perspectiva é observar esses designs de têxteis como imagens e neste sentido produtores de conhecimento sobre o contexto social e da época em foram projetados. O estudo questiona a indiferença da História da Arte e do Design em relação a esta produção, além da forma como estão sendo apresentados em exposições como objeto estético, procedimento que deixam de lado um testemunho histórico importante, no momento em que a prática do design e da arte, em conjunto, se aproximou da indústria. / [en] The study investigates the performance of the modernist avant-garde painters in the field of textile design from 1910 to 1930. More precisely, in their proposals to defend and incorporate progressive, economic and technological effort of industrial civilization and secondly the search for a closer between the arts considered major and their integration into economic production, like the decor and clothing. Moreover, part of the hypothesis that these design objects can be treated as historical evidence, such as material culture, and can speak from their conception, their marketing and their use, the role of designer-artist at the time the art served in the development of symbolic goods in order to produce industrial wealth. The other perspective is to look at these as textile designs, as images, and these knowledge producers who speaks sense of social context, and the time they were designed. The study questions the indifference of the History of Art and Design in relation to this production, and the way they are being presented in exhibitions, as mere aesthetic objects. Failure to observe these projects as historical documents, leaves out important evidence of a time when the practice of design and art industry closer together.

La tension analysée par Leo Marx dans son essai The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral ideal in America (1964), entre l’Arcadie américaine comme terre de pureté naturelle et le trope de la menace mécanique, sous-tend les œuvres des deux poètes du XXe siècle que nous nous proposons ici d’étudier, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) et Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). Leur abondante correspondance est la trace d’une relation poétique mais aussi filiale : Pater-Son, pour jouer sur le titre du long poème de Williams. Cet échange épistolaire vient également remettre en question la périodisation des mouvements littéraires trop souvent conçue comme une série de ruptures. L’état du New Jersey, Garden State, dont ils sont tous deux originaires, jardin dévasté par la révolution industrielle, apparaît comme un terrain fertile au surgissement d’une langue unique et autochtone. Cet espace commun et métamorphique offrira également une échappatoire à l’impasse de la classification des œuvres : du modernisme à la Beat Generation. Il faudra donc revenir sur les délinéaments des tracés cartographiques pour mieux dessiner à notre tour la carte poétique de leur relation littéraire et personnelle. Au gré des passions humaines, extases et tribulations, les poètes arpentent les sillons du vers qu’ils creusent à même le sol de leur New Jersey natal, pour faire sourdre le flot autochtone d’une poésie résolument américaine. / The tensions analyzed by Leo Marx in his 1964 essay The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the pastoral ideal in America, between the American Arcadia as a land of original purity and the trope of industrial threat is ghostly present throughout the works of both poets at stake in this dissertation: William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) and Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). In this research I intend to analyze the processes by which the poets manage to claim ownership of their land in spite of the lurking mechanic apocalypse. Writing, each in his own time, both poets endeavor to reclaim the original historical and spatial meaning of their continent, by devising an autochthonous language that would provide a new “point of view” and a new “point of voice”, as means to prophesy a collective future for the nation from their personal “local” anchorage in their natal New Jersey. Striving to “make a start out of particulars” they intend to escape the vastness of the continent by focusing on the minute details surrounding them in their own garden state. The correspondence between the two poets also questions the periodization of literary movements, too often conceived as a series of breaks and schisms. The Garden State, metamorphic space covered with the remnants of industrialization provides us with a way to break free from the shackles of such categorization : from modernism to the Beat Generation.

‘The poet’, Eliot wrote, ‘is occupied with frontiers of consciousness beyond which words fail, though meanings still exist’. This dissertation is an investigation into the ways in which four poets – Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and T. S. Eliot – imagine what it might mean to labour in verse towards the ‘frontiers of consciousness’. This is an old question about the value of poetry, about the kinds of understanding, feeling, and participation that become uniquely available as we read (or write) verse. But it is also a question that becomes peculiarly pressing in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. In my introductory chapter, I sketch out some of the philosophical, theological, and aesthetic contexts in which this question about what poetry might do for us becomes particularly acute: each of these four poets, I suggest, invests in verse as a means of sustaining belief in those things that seem excluded, imperilled, or forfeited by what is felt to be a peculiarly modern or (to use a contested term) ‘secularized’ understanding of the world. To write poetry becomes a labour towards enabling or ratifying otherwise untenable experiences of belief. But while my broader concern is with what is at stake philosophically, theologically, and even aesthetically in this labour towards the frontiers of consciousness, my more particular concern is with the ways in which these poets think in verse about how the poetic organisation of language brings us to momentary consciousness of otherwise unavailable ‘meanings’. For each of these poets, it is as we begin to listen in to the paralinguistic sounds of verse that we become conscious of that which lies beyond the realms of the linguistic imagination. These poets develop figures within their verse in order to theorize the ways in which this peculiarly poetic ‘music’ brings us to consciousness of that which exceeds or transcends the limits of the world in which we think we live. These figures begin as images of the half-seen (glimmering, haunting, dappling, crossing) but become a way of imagining that which we might only half-hear or half-know. Chapter 2 deals with Tennyson’s figure of glimmering light that signals the presence, activity, or territory of the ‘higher poetic imagination’; In Memoriam, I argue, represents the development of this figure into a poetics of the ‘glimpse’, a poetry that repeatedly approaches the horizon of what might be seen or heard. Chapter 3 is concerned with Hardy’s figuring of the ‘hereto’ of verse as a haunted region, his ghostly figures and spectral presences becoming a way of thinking about the strange experiences of listening and encounter that verse affords. Chapter 4 attends to the dappled skins and skies of Hopkins’ verse and the ways in which ‘dapple’ becomes a theoretical framework for thinking about the nature and theological significance of prosodic experience. And Chapter 5 considers the visual and acoustic crossings of Eliot’s verse as a series of attempts to imagine and interrogate the proposition that the poetic organisation of language offers ‘hints and guesses’ of a reality that is both larger and more significant than our own.

Les États-Unis n’ont eu de cesse d’attendre depuis Emerson le grand chef d’œuvre national qui célèbrerait le destin d’exception de la jeune démocratie et affranchirait la littérature et la langue américaines de la tutelle du vieux continent. Cette tâche ne pouvait incomber à l’épopée dont on a pu juger qu’elle était inapte à décrire le monde contemporain et qu’elle contredisait une modernité poétique de l’intensité lyrique. La renaissance spectaculaire du « long poème » américain au cours des XIXe et XXe siècle ne peut donc s’inscrire dans la filiation de « formes » jugées obsolètes. Elle paraît d’ailleurs d’autant plus problématique qu’après avoir été rapportée au lyrisme démocratique de Walt Whitman, le « long poème » fut approprié par T.S. Eliot et Ezra Pound et assimilée aux excès d’un « high modernism » autoritaire, élitiste et systématique. C’est ainsi que la critique n’est parvenue à rendre compte paradoxalement de cette « forme » qu’en la niant, confirmant ainsi son illisibilité : le long poème ne pouvait être qu’un recueil de poèmes courts, un chef d’œuvre ruiné ou une parodie de la pensée systématique et de l’exceptionnalisme américain. En étudiant « A » de Louis Zukofsky, Paterson de William Carlos William et les Maximus Poems de Charles Olson, je vise à démontrer qu’il est au contraire possible de lire cette forme en tant que telle sans avoir recours à des typologies génériques ou à la dichotomie modernisme/postmodernisme. Je tenterai aussi de suggérer que, dans ces trois œuvres, la poésie se conçoit comme une activité en devenir qui tente modestement d’articuler le poème au monde, au temps et à la lecture. / Ever since Emerson the United-States have been expecting the great national masterpiece that would not only celebrate the unique destiny of this young democracy but would also free American language and literature from the European model. However, it did not seem that it was for the epic poem to accomplish this task given that it appeared not only ill-suited to describe the modern world but also incompatible with the demands of a poetic modernity predicated on lyrical intensity. Hence, the planned obsolescence of this “form” has made it all the more difficult to explain the spectacular rebirth of the “American long poem” in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has appeared all the more problematic since, after having been associated to Walt Whitman’s democratic lyricism, the “long poem” was appropriated by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound making it the symbol of the authoritarian, elitist and systematic tendencies of “high modernism”. It will thus come as no surprise that the critical community has tended to view the “long poem” negatively confirming in a way its illegibility: the “long poem” could only be viewed as a short lyric sequence, an impossible masterpiece or a parody of systematic thought and American exceptionalism. In undertaking this study of Louis Zukofsky’s “A”, William Carlos William’s Paterson and Charles Olson’s Maximus Poems I wish to demonstrate that it is possible to read the “long poem” as such without having to resort to generic categories and to the modern/postmodern dichotomy. I also hope to show that, in these three works, poetry is understood as a kind of ongoing activity which modestly attempts to articulate the poem to the world, time and reading.

This dissertation examines Lennart Sjögren’s conception of life as revealed through his poetry and other written documents. Light is shed on his writings in three chapters, with an Introduction that opens the investigations, and a Conclusion that sums up the findings. His collection of poetry Ur männisovärlden (2008, From the world of the living) is commented upon in an epilogue. Chapter Two analyses the collection Havet (1974, The Sea), focussing on Sjögren’s view of nature and his imagery. A religious tone can be apparent throughout the poems. In earlier centuries, poems about migratory birds often gained in authenticity via their Christian context. In a secularised age, ecological insights add to the credibility of the poems. Chapter Three is an analysis and interpretation of Sjögren’s collection of poems Fågeljägarna (1997, The Bird Catchers), as well as of the intra- and intertexts that the reader meets in his writings and that, for various reasons, serve to make Sjögren’s poetic voice so distinctive. In a series of subsections the uniqueness of Fågeljägarna is defined by means of a comparison with ecology, secularisation (secularism), nihilism, religion and mythology. In addition, there is a discussion of the “poetry of place” and a final analysis of what unites and divides Sjögren and K. E. Løgstrup, regarding a poetic understanding of life. Independent of the ideological direction that is identi-fied, this cycle of poems is marked by an elegiac mood. The poem “Dagen före plöjarens kväll” (1984, “The Day before the Plough-man’s Evening”) from the eponymous collection of poems is an example of an ekphrasis (a transformation of images). Chapter Four makes a close reading of this poem, for which Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s picture “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” is a model. Four interpretative hypotheses are advanced: a moral, ontological, theological and a folkloristic one. The interpretation of the poem points out that the dialogue is not merely the poet’s private affair – the reader is also invited to take an active part in the discussion, now with the picture and the ekphrasis as prerequisites. The chapter contains a further three analyses of ekphrasis dealing with other poems from the collection Dagen före plöjarens kväll.

The breakthrough of the concept of economic growth in economics marks a paradigm shift in thinking about the economy and its place in 'reality.' This thesis analyzes the 20th century discourse of economic growth, focusing its unlimited connotations. The thesis consists of four case studies, two introductory parts and a concluding dis­cussion. Part II first gives an etymological outline of how the concept 'growth' transformed: from signifying natural processes, to become crucial within economics. The main focus is on the historiography around Adam Smith and the classical economists as 'fathers of growth.' It is argued that though Smith introduced new ideas on eco­nomic prosperity, it is anachronistic to view him as 'father of growth' in terms of modern economic discourse. The difference between conception of economic progress in classical economics - with a 'stationary state' - and the post-war concept of economic growth - without absolute limits - is interpreted by sketching four periods in economics regarding the issue of limits. Finally the label 'dismal,' often used for classical economics, is reinter­preted. The neoclassical 'Self and classical 'Other' is seen as a useful construction for legitimizing the growth discourse. Part III deals with economic thought at the turn of the century 1900. There were different ideas on what relative priority to address to individuals and communities as the basis of economy, as well as disagreements over how to organize economic policy to solve the 'social issue.' However, these differences did not result in different views on economic expansion per se. Neither to left- nor right-wing advocates was economic expansion an objective. Rather, economic expansion was a means to construct and manage a welfare state, and thus solve the social issue. If welfare could be distributed by expanding the total, there would be no sacrifices. The way economic growth was perceived in the early development discourse is studied in Part IV. The idea of unlimited growth is framed within a Western understanding of development and progress, and it is shown that hegemony on economic growth formed. Development economics made use of new and fashionable growth models, and thereby gained influence in policy. Development was reduced to economic development, which was reduced to economic growth. With a few modifications, this version of development and progress was to be implemented globally - 'no limits' became a master narrative. Part V analyzes the debate on economic growth in the 1960s and 70s. The environmental issue gave rise to thoughts on ecological limits, and thus had a key role in designating economic growth and growth ideology as a scapegoat within a longer tradition of civilization critique. As a response, professional economists put up a uni­ted defense for growth, and a polarized debate followed. Different basic assumptions underlying the polarized positions are analyzed, and the concept modernist economic ethos is introduced to explain the polarization at a fundamental level. In the dominant discourse, critics were called pessimists, and advocates were optimists. It is argued that these value-laden labels reveal the power of language and point at a trap of discourse. Economic growth and ecological sustainable development is analyzed in Part VI, and the focus is on crisis responsive economists. Two different conceptions of the economic system are found among these. The first is the economy as free-floating, which by technical inventions is minimally restricted by ecological boundaries. The second is the economy as a dependent subsystem restricted by fundamental ecological limits. Conception of the system is conclusive for understanding economic growth and its environmental effects. The free-floating approach allows the concept of 'sustainable growth,' while the subsystem approach makes it contradictory. Part VI includes a continued discussion on the power of language, and the dichotomy of pessimism and optimism. 'Optimism' is a eulogy, and works normatively. The pessimist label has functioned, at best, as a 'discourse trap;' at worst, as a means of exclusion. In Part VII results from the case studies are summarized, and general results with implications are presented. The post-war discourse on economic growth is connected to 'ecomodernism.' Three explanations for the intro­duction and strong appeal of the discourse of unlimited economic growth are introduced: the internal cause (economic theory), the external cause (context), and the professionalization cause (connecting the internal and external). The thesis ends in a discussion on growth, language and power in the context of modernism and progress. / digitalisering@umu

A defining feature of American abstract expressionist painting is its enormous size and scale. Heroic ambition, the vast American landscape, and the sense of "something big" happening in American painting are often cited as determining factors in this phenomenon. This dissertation examines how Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko not only painted large-scale canvases but, following trends in modern architecture, shifted their painting towards the construction of architectural environments, thus promoting the transformation of painting from a window in the wall to a wall without a window. The artist and architect Tony Smith, a close friend and colleague of these painters, played an active role in encouraging their interest in modern architecture. As a result of their investigations into the physical, as well as conceptual, limits of the canvas, these artists shifted the viewer’s experience from a perceptual experience of pictorial space to a physical encounter with actual space. In contradiction to the notion of the purely optical, one could describe this as a somatic viewing experience, tactile and active, which anticipated specific concerns of 1960s minimalism. This achievement redefines Pollock's, Newman's, and Rothko's legacy to the subsequent generation of artists and places their production into a broader historical framework. / text

Cities, as complex social systems within society, are the most complex of all human systems. An increase in this complexity is anticipated since projections estimate that two-thirds of the world’s population will be urbanised by 2030. Cities are “melting pots” of cultures and systems that share the same spatial environment. In South Africa this challenge is exacerbated by one of the highest urbanisation rates in the world. Urban growth implies tremendous change. City centres are especially at risk to structural changes of urban growth and consequent urban decay. Governments commonly adopt urban renewal to cope with changing urban environments. However, the long term sustainability of current urban renewal practices is questioned as they tend to over-emphasise economic revival and physical intervention. The focus on people is often missed and misunderstood, even though social dynamics are the driving forces in cities. Urban renewal is complex and multi-dimensional. In theory it moved away from the linear top-down approach that focused on the physical environment towards a more inclusive, integrated and socially oriented process. This is reflected in paradigm shifts in planning thought from a physical planning and design based product orientated discipline (as reflected in historical and modernist planning approaches), to a socio-political process in which the communicative planning paradigm is the most recent post-modern theory. Understanding cities as social systems and exploring their role in central business areas to include them in urban renewal are important starting points when urban planners work with urban renewal initiatives. As research about social systems and their role in urban renewal is limited in South Africa, this study provides a step towards acknowledging and including urban social systems proactively in urban renewal initiatives. This is especially relevant in central business districts of medium sized cities such as Potchefstroom (Tlokwe Municipality) that experience urban decay and where urban renewal initiatives have not yet been implemented. The Mission Statement of the Tlokwe Municipality emphasises the need for social understanding in the economic sphere, as this enjoys a high priority in the development choices made. A qualitative ethnographic research approach was followed to explore the role of social systems in this context. This allowed the research to capture social dynamics in its natural setting where no extraneous influences occur. This resulted in rich textual descriptions of how people experience social interactions and the physical environment. Unstructured and non-participant field observations and face-to-face, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were used as methods to identify social systems within the research context and to understand interactions and behaviour patterns that emerge from this context. Findings from the observations expose a dynamic and cyclical network of inter- and intrarelationships that culminate in continuous intense interaction amongst three social systems, namely the private sector, community groups and the general public. Pro-social behaviour patterns (behaviour that promotes good social relations) were observed, including cultural relativism and social awareness. Findings from the interviews provided insight into how social systems interact with one another and with the physical environment. Themes that emerged for the data to describe interactions among social systems include material support, friendliness, cooperativeness, comfortableness, accommodativeness, fixed and established relations and respect for one another. This creates a vibrant, synergetic environment conducive to sustainability and describes an environment of hope. The counter-experience includes forced flexibility and adaptiveness (due to unmet physical needs), feelings of being unsafe, limited choices and a general dissatisfaction with the physical environment in terms of its support. This describes an urban environment of fear. The role of social systems in terms of urban renewal is inclusive, participating and socially sensitive. They should be catalysts for socio-economic functions, contribute to maintenance and act as stakeholders. Based on the above, the study offers recommendations to include social systems in urban renewal in terms of the research process and method to be followed, how and where to include social systems in urban renewal projects and suggestions for physical change to make the area more supportive to the social dynamics. Practical guidelines are offered related to the practice of observations and interviews for the identification and exploration of social systems. The following suggestions are made regarding the urban renewal process: pro-active inclusion of social systems throughout the process in the pre-project stage, during the urban renewal project and post-project stage. Interventions to enhance the physical environment include provision of special requests, access to open space, application of green construction and local distinctiveness. As planners play a proactive role in urban renewal they may contribute to enhancing the sustainability of urban renewal initiatives by understanding urban social systems and their role in city centres in order to acknowledge and include them as important partners. / MArt et Scien (Urban and Regional Planning), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Cities, as complex social systems within society, are the most complex of all human systems. An increase in this complexity is anticipated since projections estimate that two-thirds of the world’s population will be urbanised by 2030. Cities are “melting pots” of cultures and systems that share the same spatial environment. In South Africa this challenge is exacerbated by one of the highest urbanisation rates in the world. Urban growth implies tremendous change. City centres are especially at risk to structural changes of urban growth and consequent urban decay. Governments commonly adopt urban renewal to cope with changing urban environments. However, the long term sustainability of current urban renewal practices is questioned as they tend to over-emphasise economic revival and physical intervention. The focus on people is often missed and misunderstood, even though social dynamics are the driving forces in cities. Urban renewal is complex and multi-dimensional. In theory it moved away from the linear top-down approach that focused on the physical environment towards a more inclusive, integrated and socially oriented process. This is reflected in paradigm shifts in planning thought from a physical planning and design based product orientated discipline (as reflected in historical and modernist planning approaches), to a socio-political process in which the communicative planning paradigm is the most recent post-modern theory. Understanding cities as social systems and exploring their role in central business areas to include them in urban renewal are important starting points when urban planners work with urban renewal initiatives. As research about social systems and their role in urban renewal is limited in South Africa, this study provides a step towards acknowledging and including urban social systems proactively in urban renewal initiatives. This is especially relevant in central business districts of medium sized cities such as Potchefstroom (Tlokwe Municipality) that experience urban decay and where urban renewal initiatives have not yet been implemented. The Mission Statement of the Tlokwe Municipality emphasises the need for social understanding in the economic sphere, as this enjoys a high priority in the development choices made. A qualitative ethnographic research approach was followed to explore the role of social systems in this context. This allowed the research to capture social dynamics in its natural setting where no extraneous influences occur. This resulted in rich textual descriptions of how people experience social interactions and the physical environment. Unstructured and non-participant field observations and face-to-face, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were used as methods to identify social systems within the research context and to understand interactions and behaviour patterns that emerge from this context. Findings from the observations expose a dynamic and cyclical network of inter- and intrarelationships that culminate in continuous intense interaction amongst three social systems, namely the private sector, community groups and the general public. Pro-social behaviour patterns (behaviour that promotes good social relations) were observed, including cultural relativism and social awareness. Findings from the interviews provided insight into how social systems interact with one another and with the physical environment. Themes that emerged for the data to describe interactions among social systems include material support, friendliness, cooperativeness, comfortableness, accommodativeness, fixed and established relations and respect for one another. This creates a vibrant, synergetic environment conducive to sustainability and describes an environment of hope. The counter-experience includes forced flexibility and adaptiveness (due to unmet physical needs), feelings of being unsafe, limited choices and a general dissatisfaction with the physical environment in terms of its support. This describes an urban environment of fear. The role of social systems in terms of urban renewal is inclusive, participating and socially sensitive. They should be catalysts for socio-economic functions, contribute to maintenance and act as stakeholders. Based on the above, the study offers recommendations to include social systems in urban renewal in terms of the research process and method to be followed, how and where to include social systems in urban renewal projects and suggestions for physical change to make the area more supportive to the social dynamics. Practical guidelines are offered related to the practice of observations and interviews for the identification and exploration of social systems. The following suggestions are made regarding the urban renewal process: pro-active inclusion of social systems throughout the process in the pre-project stage, during the urban renewal project and post-project stage. Interventions to enhance the physical environment include provision of special requests, access to open space, application of green construction and local distinctiveness. As planners play a proactive role in urban renewal they may contribute to enhancing the sustainability of urban renewal initiatives by understanding urban social systems and their role in city centres in order to acknowledge and include them as important partners. / MArt et Scien (Urban and Regional Planning), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013