Clear enigmas and hidden meanings: the perpetuum mobile of the ‘machine of the world’ motif in recent interartistic activity in Brazil

Brazilian Literature as World Literature

We present an analysis of the institutional and political trajectory of Brazilian initiatives in science, technology and innovation, starting from the creation of CNPq, with emphasis on the internal dynamics of the Statedescribing the context and the institutionalization dynamics of the sector packed by the developmental diagnoses and the renewed prestige of “science” typical of those years. The purpose of the analysis is to verify known results from the literature on state, institutions and actors in Brazil and to base empirical research on the executive power in this policy field. The interpretation of the data was oriented in order to reconstruct the trajectory of the sector focusing on the internal dynamics of the decision arena and its political constraints. The results confirm theoretical generalizations of the Executive Power literature in Brazil, such as the centrality of personal contact networks in the implementation of policies in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the national and international search for a Brazilian identity, we often say and hear that we are the country of soccer, samba, and Carnaval. This has given us a reputation as a party country, lacking commitment, a reputation reinforced by the economic interests of the entertainment industry. For a long time, particularly within the collective consciousness of the Brazilian people, the predominant perception has been that Brazil is not a "serious country" (many have said Charles De Gaulle was the first to use this phrase in reference to Brazil; however, Carlos Alves de Souza, Brazilian ambas- sador to France during the "Lobster War," cemented its use, and Annick T. Melsan demystified the idea), even though the Brazilian economy and the country's politics have begun to undermine this pejorative reputation. For most Brazilian intellectuals, especially those socially engaged in find- ing a solution to the country's disparities, this view of Brazil is tinged with a profound sadness that arises from the absence of an auspicious present and the distance from a redemptive future. This idea can be found in Paulo Prado's book Retrato do Brasil: Um ensaio sobre a tristeza brasileira (1928) (Portrait of Brazil: An Essay on Brazilian Sadness) and in Gilberto Freyre's classic essays marked by autobiographical witness in Casa-grande e senzala (1933) (The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (1946)) and Sobrados e mucambos (1936) (The Mansions and the Shanties: The Making of Modern Brazil (1987)). Additionally, Sergio Buarque de Hollanda in Raizes do Brasil (1936) (Brazilian Roots) and Visao do paraiso (1959) (Vision of Paradise) and Caio Prado Junior in Formacao do Brasil c ontemporâneo (1942) (The Formation of Contemporary Brazil (1967)) highlight "the cordial man,"

Empregou-se o Modernismo brasileiro para realizar, por meio do Grande sertão: veredas (1956), essa travessia pela identidade da área compreendida entre Goiás e Minas Gerais. O objetivo é demonstrar que a retomada, por Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967), dos esteios estéticos que demarcaram essa fase em seu momento inicial nos anos 1920 sem abandonar as obras e vertentes literárias que a seguiram e fatos históricos marcantes, gerou um Modernismo atípico que, por não romper, completamente, com a tradição, recebe a designação de Modernismo tardio. Na obra do ficcionista em questão a ruptura aparece de modo mais contundente que em quaisquer outras obras do terceiro momento do Modernismo, o que levou à inauguração do Pós-Modernismo. O não finalizar encontra, no Grande sertão: veredas, um ponto de contato com a historiografia, até porque o símbolo do infinito, no final da obra indica ser a travessia de Riobaldo e Diarorim uma viagem que transcende a narração. Para se chegar aos resultados procedeu-se à leitura da obra, comparando-a com outras obras do mesmo período e da primeira fase do Modernismo; além disso, praticou-se a compatibilização entre a obra e o contexto cultural em que a mesma se insere. Dessa forma, empregou-se, como metodologia a leitura comparativa e as teses da Hermenêutica. O resultado a que a pesquisa subjacente a este texto chegou é de que a culpa de Riobaldo é a mesma de todos os homens que se deixam levar pelas circunstâncias, restringindo o olhar na superfície da realidade enquanto nas profundezas pululam as ocorrências que determinam e orientam os destinos do mundo. Outro resultado inscrito no objetivo expresso acima indica que a obra em questão contribuiu para que se iniciasse nova fase na literatura brasileira.

O objetivo deste artigo é aplicar, de forma pioneira, análise exploratória de dados espaciais sobre dados de patentes per capita para analisar a distribuição da inovação em microrregiões geográficas brasileiras. Os resultados revelam que as patentes per capita são distribuídas de forma não aleatória, indicando autocorrelação espacial positiva. A heterogeneidade espacial constatada pelo método confirma a existência de um regime de polarização Norte-Sul em termos de atividade tecnológica. Indicadores locais de associação espacial e estatísticas de Moran bivariadas são calculados com intuito de determinar a influência da vizinhança sobre a performance tecnológica das microrregiões. Os resultados mostram que a ausência de industrialização, de alto grau de escolaridade da população adulta, de pesquisadores com doutorado, de trabalhadores em áreas de formação tecnológica e de diversidade industrial e tecnológica podem funcionar como barreiras espaciais e, dessa forma, inviabilizar o processo de difusão dos transbordamentos de conhecimento.

Review: <i>Form and Feeling: The Making of Concretism in Brazil</i>, edited by Antonio Sergio Bessa

This article examines how translation helped to establish Brazil as a tropical site of desire for foreign audiences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how translations of contemporary literature often struggle to break free from this established dynamic. By studying the discursive construction of a modern Brazil in the nineteenth century and the practices of translation in contemporary Brazilian literature, I contend that the insertion of Brazil into realms of world literature often depends upon acts of representation and translation that frame the nation and its peoples as exotic. Analysing the Brazilian government's recent translation grants and contemporary English-language anthologies of Brazilian literature reveals a tendency to translate either an exotic Brazil marked by violence and poverty or a global Brazil inhabited by cosmopolitan characters. The piece concludes by reflecting on how a politics of untranslatability could transform the translation and global circulation of Brazilian literature.

In February 1922 a group of iconoclastic young Brazilian writers, artists and intellectuals gathered in Sao Paulo's Municipal Theater, noisily declared the country's artistic independence, and officially inaugurated what has since become known as the modernist movement, or simply put, Brazilian modernism. From the outset Brazilian modernism was a heterogeneous movement encompassing a multiplicity of aesthetic, cultural, social, and political proposals. Sociologist Renato Ortiz has suggested that modernism, directly imported from Europe, was out of place in Brazil since it proposed modernity without modernization. Arising at the outset of a decade of social, political, and economic transition, modernism was in fact a cultural expression of the transformation and modernization of Brazilian society. Modernism sought to destroy the rigidly stratified norms of its literary predecessors and at the same time create a new Brazilian literature which was at once up to date with the most advanced trends in Europe and an expression of Brazil's individuality.

Unique in its inclusion of Brazil in a comparative study of literary texts and their engagement with Western modernity, Cannibal Modernities is the first post colonial study to show how the peripheral replications of modernity in contemporary Caribbean and Latin American texts differ crucially from their European models. Luis Madureira addresses issues that so many post colonial theorists have struggled with, particularly the complex interactions and antagonisms between indigenous cultures and the imperial cultures imposed upon them and the effort to provincialize the West. Madureira's book diverges from existing critical texts, however, in crucial, thought-provoking ways. The specific literary traditions compared here - Brazilian modernism, negritude theory and poetry, as well as Caribbean literary theory and historical discourses in French, English, and Spanish - have not been brought together in a single study before. In addition, the book's theoretical model of comparison focuses on the complexities of colonial and post colonial identity and of nationhood and globalization, as well as on their agonistic engagement with Europe's enlightenment philosophy. Cannibal Modernities shows us it is precisely in those New World avant-garde movements that have been traditionally designated as imitative that the emergence of post-coloniality resides and, moreover, that Europe's foundational discourses of modernity are enabled and sustained by the very peoples and cultures that have been relegated to the margins by modernity.

The purpose of the article is to study the theoretical and practical principles of regulating creative practices and defining the conditions for implementation of culture creativity technologies in the socio-cultural field.&#x0D; The methodology. In this study we have applied the scientific analysis and synthesis method in order to define the culture creativity process efficiency conditions through implementation of creative practices, which may include: development of sociocultural process subjects’ ability to be creative, establishing a community-team of like-minded individuals to produce and implement creative ideas, purposeful technologization of creative activities, making up the space to realize newest creative practices and improve traditional ones. By comparing the scientific facts and the method of purposeful goal-setting it was found out that every condition provides for completing a number of tasks, namely use of interactive technologies to stimulate creative thinking of professionals and participants of socio-cultural activities; realization of functioning principles of the creative center, which generates and selects ideas for implementation of a cultural product; carrying out original space functioning for continuous communication and supporting creative atmosphere.&#x0D; The results. In a broad sense, culture management should ensure the dynamics of culture creativity process, in a narrow one — the efficiency of creative technology in the sociocultural field. It ensures technologization of creative practices, creates organizational and management conditions for productive interaction, which must be taken into account while realizing the creative process of culture creation. That is to say, culture management is viewed particularly as managing creativity and innovation in socio-cultural field.&#x0D; The scientific novelty. Culture management ensures culture creation dynamics by implementing effective mechanisms of promoting innovative practices in the socio-cultural field. Taking into account individual (creative personality), group (creative team), environmental (creative space) and activity (creative activities and interaction) aspects we determined the systematic nature of management and its viability.&#x0D; The practical significance. According to the results of the study, the complexity of culture creation determines the choice of non-traditional approaches for stimulation of creative thinking, group decision making and constructing culture centers. Conditions must be provided to realize creative practices as a technology and project that provides for clear planning, search and distribution of necessary resources, monitoring realization and final evaluation of efficiency.

As Divisões de Polícia Política e Social cumpriram destacada função com relação à atividade de Inteligência no Brasil durante boa parte do século XX. Após o golpe civil-militar de 1964, a importância do aparato policial foi redimensionada dentro dos Sistemas de Informações e de Segurança construídos durante a ditadura que se seguiu. Neste sentido, pretendemos analisar o trabalho policial com relação à Inteligência doméstica dentro destes sistemas e, num sentido mais amplo, do projeto repressor pretendido pelos governos militares. Tal análise, tendo como fonte a documentação produzida pela Polícia Política no período, se dará a partir da definição conceitual de Inteligência como um trabalho que envolve o segredo e destina-se à coleta e análise de dados a fim de produção de conhecimento. Considerando tratar-se de um organismo policial, levamos em conta que a produção destas informações efetuava um processo de criminalização da oposição política ao regime. O que pretendemos demonstrar é que o know how policial e seu banco de dados foram fundamentais para o projeto de Segurança pretendido naquele contexto, tanto pela atuação do órgão enquanto polícia jurídica como na produção de informações que alimentava o referido sistema.

By the 1920s, new ideas regarding film as the seventh art disseminated in Europe had a profound effect on Brazilian literature, specifically the emergence of an avant-garde literary movement known as modernismo, or “modernism.” Charting the new theories regarding cinema as an art form, this chapter examines how they were appropriated and elaborated by modernist writers in Brazil in the 1920s, most notably in the novels of Oswald de Andrade, the poetry of Mário de Andrade, and an urban chronicle by Antônio de Alcântara Machado called Pathé Baby. In examining this experimental literature, the chapter shows how new international ideas regarding film form and aesthetics provided the modernist writers with a tool for critiquing the official trajectory of national modernity in Brazil.

This paper interrogates the claims of the German theorists Max Bense (1910–1990) and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (1948–) that they perceived in Brazilian art and literature a tropical temporality, defined by a constructed existence outside linear (“European”) history. As he wrote in his Brasilianische Intelligenz: Eine cartesianische Reflexion(1965), Max Bense, a Stuttgart-based philosopher of aesthetics and technology, found in Brazil's modernist capital, said to have been built ex nihilo in the late 1950s, an unprecedented fusion of design and politics that upended historical models of aesthetic valuation. As Bense applied his informational aesthetics to his study of Concrete poetry, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, in hisAfter 1945: Latency as Origin of the Present (2013), uses a post-hermeneutical method to denude João Cabral de Melo Neto's poetry of historical and semantic depth. Ultimately this paper argues that in their autobiographical accounts of travels to Brazil both authors betray a tendency to equate Brazil with an “otherness,” thereby displacing onto Brazilian culture another indication that, from the European perspective, its dream of itself persists.

By the 1920s, new ideas regarding film as the seventh art disseminated in Europe had a profound effect on Brazilian literature, specifically the emergence of the avant-garde literary movement known modernismo. Charting the new theories regarding cinema as an art form, this essay examines how they were appropriated and re-elaborated by modernist writers in Brazil in the early 1920s as part of their project to redefine Brazilian letters for the twentieth century. It focuses specifically on novels and writings by Oswald de Andrade. Like other modernists, such as Mário de Andrade and Guilherme de Almeida, Oswald wrote about film in the press in the early 1900s. His interest in the moving pictures, however went further. Taking on board new film theories from Europe, Oswald incorporated cinematic techniques in his novels, reconceptualising realism for the modern age. Examining Memorias sentimentais de João Miramar (1924) and Seraphim Ponte Grande (1928) along with his manifestos, the essay looks at how Oswald’s self-conscious cinematic consumption enabled him to challenge the aura of the traditional role of Brazilian writing and of the writer and in doing so construct a new literary subjectivity, one that was inherently cinematic.

Reviews 265 of the book, Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues analyses the appropriation and deconstruction of the intertexts of the ethnographic classics of Henri Junod and Theodor Koch-Grunberg in the process of (re)construction of the new national identities in Terra Somnambula [Sleepwalking Land] and Mario de Andrade’s Brazilian modernist classic Macunaíma. This essay seems to bridge the gap with the final essay, where Fernanda Vilar observes the process of (re) construction of memory through the contestation of European written sources in the trilogy about the Emperor of Gaza, Ngungunyane. Celina Martins, in her analysis of A Varanda do Frangipani [Under the Frangipani], unveils the problematics of rhizomatic identities focusing on the non-human element, the frangipani tree. Finally, Irene Marques addresses issues of female resistance and patriarchy, both in traditional African societies and among the colonizing element, in the novel Mulheres de Cinza [Women of Ashes]. It seems to me that there is a rather problematic contradiction in the text. Throughout the reading I had a feeling that the literary text was treated as a historical document, ignoring the fact that the black female voices are constructed by the white male writer. What is surprising is that Marques even quotes Tom Stennett when he points to this fact, but then dismisses it as an unfair attack on the writer without, in my opinion, problematizing the issue enough. In any case, aside from the few problematic aspects in some of the essays I pointed out above, I have no doubt that the book fulfills the promise made by its editor in the introduction. It is a publication that truly introduces a fresh look at Mia Couto’s literary production. It is also significant that it is a publication in English, something that not only signals the growing interest in the author’s work outside the ‘Lusophony’, but also proves the comparative capacity of his work and its worldwide versatility. Finally, it can be concluded that The Worlds of Mia Couto is an indispensable reference for Couto studies in the third decade of the twenty-first century. WReC — Warwick Research Collective, Desenvolvimento combinado e desigual: por uma nova teoria da literatura-mundial, trans. by Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice (Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2020). 344 pages. Print. Reviewed by Emanuelle Santos (University of Birmingham) The Brazilian translation of the 2015 book by Warwick Research Collective (WReC) into Portuguese marks a certain volta pra casa of a way of thinking literature in a rather Tieta-esque fashion: seasoned on the flavours and ways of the cosmopolitan British academia and holding a certain altivez, an all too common undertone of the type of theory produced in the comparative literature — especially at the cores of the world-system. This translation opens to the Portuguese-speaking world an outstanding incursion on the territory of theoretical enquiry in comparative literary studies whose central premises depart from experiences of our own. The WReC’s conceptualization of worldliterature as the literature that registers the single but radically uneven capitalist Reviews 266 world-system in its form and content, relies on the alignment, or superposition, of two fundamental critical paradigms whose theorization is intrinsically linked to the Portuguese-speaking world: Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, informed by the author’s extensive work on the liberation struggles in Portuguese-speaking Africa together with Aquino de Bragança; and Roberto Schwarz’s articulation of literary form as conteúdo sócio-histórico decantado stemming from the critic’s thinking on Brazilian literature, especially through the work of Machado de Assis. The result is a necessarily dense book whose dialectical relationship between form and content does not betray its critical hypothesis, thus posing a great translation challenge that Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice has carried out with responsibility and competence. One of the characteristics of the work is the carving of a new terminology needed in order to fulfil the title’s promise of a ‘nova teoria da literatura-mundial’, putting the strategic and careful use of language at the centre of the argument. The hyphen in the WReC’s rendition of world-literature turns it into a concept that is radically different from the popular unhyphenated rendition of world literature; similarly, the...