This thesis consists of a close reading and meta-analysis of themes and patterns in the works that comprise the fictional world of “Middle-Earth” created by J. R. R. Tolkien, in specific relation to the culturally prevalent views of the decadence of modernity and the ideological dynamics of fascism. This thesis explores the ideological dynamics of the fictional world constructed by Tolkien’s texts, and argues that his work contains demonstrable similarities to the ideological dynamics of fascism in its response to the existential challenges of modernity. To clarify, this thesis does not argue that Tolkien’s fiction can be read as “fascist,” tout court, but rather to give a comprehensive outline of how the fictional world created within his texts relate to discourses critical of modernisation and to what extent the aesthetic and ideological dynamics of this world present what I will call a fascist utopia. Tolkien’s work will be approached using the arguments and theories from canonical texts and authors regarding discourses on modernity, including works from the fields of philosophy (Nietzsche), political economy (Marx and Engels), literary studies, sociology (Durkheim, Weber and Simmel) and psychology (Freud). Alongside this I will use relevant studies of fascism to analyse how Tolkien fits within and relates to the aforementioned discourses. I assert the findings that Tolkien creates a world which, in its attempts to renew the values of the past through the presentation of mythology, rootedness, community, agrarianism and hierarchy, demonstrates a semi-fascistic utopia. This is not to cast aspersions or make claims about Tolkien’s creative intentions or personal ideology, rather an observation as to the content and themes of his fictional world. I will argue this fictional world aligns with fascist concepts of identity, nationhood, heritage, mythology and renewal; however, at the same time finding it non-aligned with the central thrust of fascism, in its overt condemnation of industrialism and technology. This contradictory combination produces a fictional world which presents the renewal of what Roger Griffin terms the “shields against ontological terror” (75) now lost or delegitimised in the modern age.

Submitted by PPG Filosofia (filosofia-pg@pucrs.br) on 2018-05-30T17:27:13Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_NELSON COSTA FOSSATTI.pdf: 774785 bytes, checksum: f2b99c1a315cebddbe47e5691b0ae80a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2018-06-11T20:15:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_NELSON COSTA FOSSATTI.pdf: 774785 bytes, checksum: f2b99c1a315cebddbe47e5691b0ae80a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-11T20:18:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_NELSON COSTA FOSSATTI.pdf: 774785 bytes, checksum: f2b99c1a315cebddbe47e5691b0ae80a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-26 / This study discusses the contingencies of inventive art (Ars Inveniendi), based on the sphere of concrete utopias developed by Ernst Bloch in his work The Principle of Hope. The level of contingencies generated by the blind dynamism of nature stretches the comprehended hope, docta spes, and the artifacts of homo utopicus. Nature undertakes a behavior and is both potentially passive and active. In its effectiveness, it reaches a unique degree of autonomy, thus becoming ?nature naturing? (natura naturans), hence determining the dimension of the autonomous utopias. The autonomy of these utopias accounts for unpredictable and inconsistent events, which may threaten the future of humanity. On the other hand, radicalization of anthropocentrism ignores the language of nature and extends the distance between man and nature, receiving in this perspective the thought of Bloch, Henri Bergson and Hans Jonas. In that sense, the study proposes a way to exteriorize the subjectivity of nature to determine a possible ethical reconciliation of the original unit. Exteriorizing the subjectivity of nature means adopting a method that permits establishing a dialogue among man and nature in the cosmocentric environment. The methodology used to exteriorize the subjectivity of nature resorts to the concept of optical physics, the principle of the reversibility of the path, and is also based on Schelling?s work Philosophy of Nature. Most philosophers of his time start from the conscious ego to the object and represent the real in their consciousness, but Schelling does the opposite: he inverts the meaning of the analysis, leads the object to the consciousness of the human being and embraces the representation of the real in his consciousness. The perspective of the analysis inaugurated in this study implies that ethical foundations are governed by the categorical imperatives claimed by the original unit, which are absent in the Kantian maxim. The study also points out a method of establishing a dialogue with the subjectivity of nature through the exteriority in the social-historical time by embracing the dur?e, a ?coming into being?, and a ?not-yet? open to the future. / O presente estudo aborda as conting?ncias da arte inventiva [Ars inveniendi], e tem como refer?ncia a esfera das utopias concretas desenvolvida por Ernst Bloch em sua obra Princ?pio Esperan?a. O n?vel de conting?ncias gerado pelo dinamismo cego da natureza tenciona a esperan?a esclarecida [docta spes] e os artefatos do homo utopicus. A natureza assume um comportamento potencialmente passivo, bem como, potencialmente ativo. Na sua efetividade alcan?a um grau de autonomia singular e passa a responder por ?natureza geradora de natureza?, natura naturans, determinando desta forma a dimens?o das utopias-aut?nomas. A autonomia destas utopias responde por eventos, n?o previs?veis, inconsequentes que podem amea?ar o futuro da humanidade. De outro lado, a radicaliza??o do antropocentrismo desconhece a linguagem da natureza, acentuando a dist?ncia entre homem e natureza, recepcionando nesta perspectiva o pensamento de Bloch, Henri Bergson e Hans Jonas. Neste sentido, o estudo tem como objetivo propor uma forma de exteriorizar a subjetividade da natureza a fim de determinar uma poss?vel reconcilia??o ?tica da unidade origin?ria. Exteriorizar a subjetividade da natureza significa recorrer a um m?todo que permita integrar homem e natureza no ambiente cosmoc?ntrico. Destarte, a metodologia adotada para exteriorizar a subjetividade da natureza recorre ao conceito da f?sica ?tica do princ?pio do caminho inverso e tamb?m tem como refer?ncia a obra de Schelling ?Filosofia da Natureza?. A maioria dos fil?sofos de sua ?poca parte do seu eu consciente para o objeto e faz na sua consci?ncia representa??o do real; Schelling percorre o caminho inverso: faz o objeto vir ? consci?ncia do ser humano e recepciona na sua consci?ncia a representa??o do real. A perspectiva inaugurada neste estudo permite identificar uma forma de manifesta??o da natureza na potencialidade passiva e ativa, bem como, a aus?ncia de fundamentos ?ticos ainda n?o apropriada pelos imperativos categ?ricos da unidade origin?ria; a m?xima que prop?e que a universalidade s? encontre fundamento na racionalidade do sujeito moral, n?o contempla a subjetividade da natureza. Confabular com a subjetividade da natureza pressup?e uma reflex?o no tempo cont?nuo, um ?vir-a-ser?, dur?e, inerente ? evolu??o da unidade origin?ria, portanto um ?ainda-n?o? [noch-nicht] aberto ao futuro.

Esta dissertação é sobre uma experiência de estágio realizada na Escola Experimental de Bonneuil-sur-Marne, fundada pela psicanalista Maud Mannoni e que acolhe crianças psicóticas, autistas ou com neuroses graves. É uma instituição que proporciona um lugar para viver àqueles que foram excluídos dos sistemas educacionais, familiares e médicos. Aportei em terras estrangeiras para um estágio, para o encontro com o estranho familiar, com a loucura, com as rasuras de uma instituição que se faz a cada dia no encontro com as crianças e os adolescentes, com a vida como ela se apresenta em sua potência de vir a ser a todo instante. Ao retornar, precisei das palavras, das narrativas de tantos outros para poder criar a minha própria narrativa sobre o que vi e vivi em terras distantes. Dos autores/artistas que percorri, tomei emprestado as palavras/significantes/neologismo/conceitos “casa”, “êxtimo”, “pulsão” e “utopia”, como operadores para pensar e narrar a experiência. Esses operadores permitiram desenvolver as relações dentro/fora, interior/exterior, eu/outro, estranho/familiar, fort/da, que dizem respeito tanto à constituição do sujeito quanto ao funcionamento de Bonneuil, ambos fundados na psicanálise. Possibilitaram, ainda, apresentar a instituição, seus espaços, sua ocupação, a estrutura que permanece, bem como as aberturas e o ir e vir para dentro e fora da escola, ensaiando a criação de um sujeito. O corte e a criação, necessários para que a vida irrompa e não cristalize, apontam para a utopia que permeia a instituição. / Esta disertación es sobre una experiencia de pasantía realizada en la Escuela Experimental de Bonneuil-sur-marne, fundada por la psicoanalista Maud Mannoni, que acoge niños psicóticos, autistas o con neurosis graves. Se trata de una institución que proporciona un lugar para vivir a aquellos que fueron excluidos de los sistemas educacionales, familiares y médicos. Arribé a tierras extranjeras para una pasantía, para el encuentro con lo extraño familiar, con la locura, con los esbozos de una institución que se hace a cada día en el encuentro con los niños y adolescentes, con la vida tal como ella se presenta en su potencia de devenir a cada instante. Al retornar, necesité de las palabras, los significantes, los neologismos, los conceptos “casa”, “éxtimo”, “pulsión” y “utopí”a como operadores para pensar y narrar la experiencia. Estos operadores permitieron desarrollar las relaciones dentro/fuera, interior/exterior, yo/otro, extraño/familiar, fort/da, que refieren tanto a la constitución del sujeto como al funcionamiento de Bonneuil, ambos fundados en el psicoanálisis. Posibilitaron inclusive presentar la institución, sus espacios, su ocupación, la estructura que permanece, así como las aberturas, el ir y venir para dentro y fuera de la escuela, ensayando la creación de un sujeto. El corte y la creación, necesarias para que la vida irrumpa y no cristalice, revelan la utopía que permea la institución.

Neste estudo, mergulhamos na poesia de Oswald de Andrade para refletirmos sobre o papel do humor e da escrita de vanguarda para o desenvolvimento de uma crítica social. Destacamos a potência do fazer poético como ato utópico, visto que desestabilizando formas cristalizadas pela cultura e sentidos homogeneizados, cria nossas possibilidades de significações e de renovação da linguagem. A partir do texto “O Estranho”, de Freud, pensamos o estranhamento como um ato utópico, já que interroga o sujeito quanto as certezas estabelecidas do seu encontro com o outro. Tal como a utopia, o estranhamento não encontra respostas, mas desencadeia perguntas. O ato analítico, na medida em que realiza cortes na cadeia discursiva, também possibilita o surgimento de algo novo, de uma outra forma de contar a ficção de si mesmo. A partir daí, podemos pensar uma interlocução entre esses três atos: poético, utópico e analítico. Nessa aventura, o encontro com a diferença, vinda das potencialidades do outro, é considerado fator fundamental para a construção de uma nova vivência do cotidiano compactado, reinventando rumos. / In this study, we plunge into Oswald de Andrade’s poetry to analyze the role played by humor and groundbreaking writing in the development of social critique. Special emphasis is given to the power of poetry as a utopian act, for it creates our possibilities of meaning and language renewal by destabilizing crystallized cultural forms and homogenized senses. In Freud’s "The Uncanny", one can see strangeness as a utopian act, since it inquires the individual about the established certainties of his encounter with the other. Just like utopia, strangeness does not find answers, but triggers questions. The analytic act, in that it performs cuts in the discursive chain, allows the emergence of something new, another way to tell one’s own fiction. Thereafter, one can think of a dialogue between these three acts: poetic, utopian and analytical. In such adventure, the encounter with the difference coming from the potential of the other is a key element to the construction of a new way to experience the compressed everyday life, reinventing ways.

How can a literary theorist account for unselected texts and narratives, and measure the importance of voices no longer audible to readers today? The following dissertation uses various, and variously successful 19th century literary texts as a point of departure for considering the complex forces affecting the fragment of texts selected over time from within a wider field of anonymous and unwritten narratives. Bridging literary theory and Darwinian science, "Evolutionary Landscapes" argues that concepts of mutation, replication and selection can provide a framework for thinking about how narratives and genre developed in the 19th century United States. Current attempts to bring biological insights directly into literary study through evolutionary psychology or cognitive Darwinism ignore the complex systems, including cultural and market forces, that might have been used to predict a given text's chances for longer-term survival. The figure I choose to represent these economic, unwritten, and cultural influences on literary texts is the "adaptive landscape" developed by the geneticist Sewall Wright, and recently adapted by the evolutionary theorist Michael Ruse. The relationships between texts and ecologies fore-grounded in the following chapters, even when dealing with individual authors, necessitates looking at literature from the point of view of the random mutation and subsequent selection of texts in the face of a collectively determined ecology of formal expectations. My approach to the evolution of literature builds on the work of the literary critic Franco Moretti and the philosopher Daniel Dennett, although a turn to U.S. rather than British fiction casts a different light on literary evolution than that described yet by Moretti, and deals more specifically with questions of literary and cultural history than either Dennett's philosophy of memetics or Carroll's socio-biologically inflected Literary Darwinism alone would allow. The 19th century literary ecology to which the fictions of Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Edward Bellamy and Mary Wilkins Freeman were well or poorly adapted can be imagined as a kind of fitness landscape where literary publications are drawn towards the peaks climbed by previous writers, representing conventions or formula that proven successful in the past. A gradualist focus on textual silence and extinction within literary evolution, along with evolutionary and ecological theory, can provide abstract models to make visible the complex ecology of oral, cultural, written, printed and reprinted information that constitutes the "soft tissues" always missing from the archival past.

This project argues that American literary utopias of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) and William Dean Howells' Altrurian Romances (1907) to Aldous Huxley's Island and Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed (1974), offer a unique narrative site to approach the ethical and political concerns of postmodernity. Literary utopias are conventionally read as either dogmatic and totalitarian schemes or impractical and fanciful dreams; they are interpreted as representations of an archetypal ideology. I contend that these conventional interpretations overlay and belie an essentially post-ideological irony and ambivalence inherent in the neologism "utopia"--the "good place" (eu-topos) that is simultaneously "no place" (ou-topos). Utopian narratives remain unfinished projects whose political and ethical potential resides in the suspension of utopia's realization, a notion discussed in Jacques Derrida's exploration of the irony and ultimate ethical significance of an idea that cannot be fully presented or realized (différance), a space that cannot be traversed (a-poria), and of a community-to-come engendered by these notions. Accordingly, my readings of American literary utopias disclose narrative characteristics, from temporal instability to radical shifts in points of view, to show that the value of utopian literature lies in its exploration of alternative possibilities without prescribing finite and present solutions.

This dissertation presents an evaluation of a funded consultancy that was intended to bring about change in the education and training of police in Australia in response to illicit drugs. Sponsored by what was at the time known as the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, the ultimate goal of the consultancy was a national framework for police education and training to enhance frontline police response to illicit drug problems. The research used a case study design. Guba and Stufflebeam’s (1970) Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model was used to organise the presentation of a rich description of the design, development and implementation of the consultancy. Application of this framework enabled illumination of a number of issues related to social policy, change and innovation, and quality improvement processes. The study explores the role of education and training in organisational change and concludes that the potential of external consultancy activity to effect meaningful change in police education, training and practice is limited by a number of factors. Key findings of the study are that while a number of consultancy processes could have been enhanced, the primary determinants of the extent to which a change in police education and training will enhance frontline practice are contextual and conceptual factors. The study reveals that the response of frontline police to illicit drug use is influenced by multivariate factors. The findings of this study suggest that while frontline police are keen to provide solutions to a range of practice issues in response to illicit drug problems, they desire concrete strategies that are well defined and supported by management, consistent with policy and within the law. However, the complexity of police activity in response to illicit drugs; the dissonance between the conceptual frameworks of police and health agencies; and, resistance to what is perceived as externally initiated change in police practice, education and training; were found to be powerful inhibitors of an utopian attempt to enhance frontline police response to illicit drug problems. Using the metaphor of board games, the study concludes that the development of an education and training framework will be of little value in achieving enhanced frontline practice in response to illicit drug problems unless the criteria for enhanced response are made more explicit and seen to be congruent with both the conceptualisation and operationalisation of police roles and functions. Moreover, the study questions the mechanisms through which changes in policy are conceived, implemented and evaluated and highlights a need for greater congruence between evaluation frameworks and the nature of change.

We live in an age of rapid change. The advance of science and technology, throughout history, has culminated in periods of transition when social values have had to adapt to a changed environment. Such times have proved fertile ground for the expansion of the imagination. Utopian literature offers a vast archive of information concerning the relationship between scientific and technological progress and social change. Alterations in the most basic machinery of society inspired utopian authors to write of distant and future worlds which had achieved a state of harmony and plenty. The dilemmas which writers faced were particular to their era, but there also emerged certain universal themes and questions: What is the best organisation of society? What tools would be adequate to the task? What does it mean to be human? The dividing line on these issues revolves around two opposed beliefs. Some perceived the power inherent in technology to effect the greatest improvement in the human condition. Others were convinced that the organisation of the social order must come first so as to create an environment sympathetic to perceived human needs. There are, necessarily, contradictions in such a division. They can be seen plainly in More's Utopia itself. More wanted to see new science and technique developed. But he also condemned the social consequences which inevitably flowed from the process of discovery. These consequences led More to create a utopia based on social reorganisation. In the main, the utopias of Francis Bacon, Edward Bellamy and the later H. G. Wells accepted science, while the work of William Morris, Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut rejected science in preference for a different social order. More's Utopia and Bacon's New Atlantis were written at a time when feudal, agriciTfural society wasbeeing transformed by new discoveries and techniques. In a later age, Bellamy's Looking Backward and Morris's News From Nowhere offer contrary responses to society at the height of the Industrial evolution. These four authors serve as a prelude to the main area of the thesis which centres on the twentieth century. Wells, though his first novel appeared in 1895, produced the vast bulk of his work in the current century. Huxley acts as an appropriate balance to Wells and also exemplifies the shift from utopia to dystopia. The last section of the thesis deals with the work of Kurt Vonnegut and includes an interview with that author. The twentieth century has seen the proliferation of dystopias, portraits of the disastrous consequences of the headlong pursuit of science and technology, unallied to human values. Huxley and Vonnegut crystallised the fears of a modern generation: that we create a soulless, mechanised, urban nightmare. The contemporary fascination with science in literature is merely an extension of a process with a long tradition and underlying theme. The advance of science and technology created the physical and intellectual environment for utopian authors which determined the form and content of their visions.

This essay analyzes and tries to untangle the meaning and intention of dystopian literature, by analyzing two novels (Neal Shusterman‟s “Unwind” and Aldous Huxley‟s “Brave New World”). From this analysis, whether or not the futures portrayed in dystopian literature relate to our own future is riddled out, furthermore the importance of the authors‟ intention is debated and a conclusion is reached. As the dystopian future unravels, ethnicity, gender, class and sexual orientation, to mention a few factors, find their own place in the new world; this essay tries to establish their roles in the new society. When discussing the characters in the novels, Bourdieu‟s theories on fields, habitus and social capital are used to figure out what they are competing for and in what ways they struggle for the reward. Furthermore, the development of dystopian imagining is discussed and its function as a reflection of contemporary society and the state of science. Delineating the roles of social classes in dystopias is an important task in figuring out whether social power still reduces minorities depending on class or gender. Our antiquated morals and ethics aren‟t suitable anymore and need to be reformed; this is discussed based on dystopian literature and the image of the future. Furthermore, this essay gets into detail with the reduction of man and by what means we are enslaved and made to believe in the faux utopias. In the end, the conclusion reached is that dystopian literature delivers a hefty and important point that needs to be heeded and used as a rare look into the future.

Is the concept of the urban utopia now defunct? This is a study of the modern urban utopias of the late 20th century, investigated their recent qualities in respect to capitalist mode of production. Accordingly, a recent example, that of Dubai, will be studied and its rapid growth over the last 20 years will be questioned. The primary objective of this thesis is to provide an understanding of how and to what extent flexible accumulation requires a spatial fix, in particular in new geographies, and mobilizes urban utopias for its own sake. The research will rely on the premise that modern urban utopias are mere reflections of capitalist ideologies.