Enunciative Positions Research Articles

Whiteness at the abyss: reflections on a scene of attack

AbstractThis paper focusses on a series of online attacks that the author was subjected to after comments he had made in a closed lecture on the topic of ‘white anxiety’ were cut from the zoom recording and distributed widely online with the clear intent of causing outrage. The analysis of the material, which combines thematic, discourse analytic and personal reflections, yielded a series of core themes: 1) the role of the messages in consolidating an identity, 2) performative offensiveness, 3) perverse intimidations, 4) accusations/denials/expressions of racism, 5) the race-traitor as ideological dilemma, 6) antisemitism and 7) aggressive cordiality. The paper closes with a few reflections on the author’s enunciative position in respect of the attacks.

Élever la bizarrerie à la dignité du style. Pour une éthique de l’accompagnement des patients autistes

ObjectivesThis article aims to identify how the analytical framework can lead an autistic subject to create an artisanal solution that allows him to enter the world. MethodThe Lacanian theoretical conceptualization is based on clinical observations collected during the treatment of a young autistic boy. ResultsWe argue that engaging in therapeutic work with an autistic patient can offer him a potential environment – which we distinguish from potential space – in which his particular quirks can be elevated to the dignity of a style that the autistic child will himself shape and that will allow him a certain social bond. DiscussionWe qualify the therapeutic space offered by the analytical framework as a potential environment, which we define as the coordinates of the encounter set up by the clinician bringing into existence a Stimmung from which the child can experience his or her instinctual movements. Stimmung is to be understood as the phenomenological quality of the potential environment, simultaneously including tuning, invocative address, disposition, and atmosphere, i.e. a possible relationship with the Other. Clinical intervention would allow the child not to represent himself in this potential environment – which is the nature of potential space –, but to present himself to the world. It is the clinician's responsibility to bring into existence an Other who can isolate and put into circulation the subject's oddity – which could be considered a failure – bringing forth a singularizing sign and elevating it to the dignity of style that the autistic child will shape. ConclusionThe style, thus obtained, corresponds to the possibility of a singular enunciative position – inscribing a presence in the world by tempering the weight of the subject –, which, in autism, always requires a certain amount of tinkering in order to arrive at a solution.

Philip E. Phillis, Greek Cinema and Migration, 1991–2016 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020)

With this engaging work on the contemporary filmic representation of migration by Greek cinema, Philip Phillis enters significantly into the hotly debated the issue of migration en masse to Europe of the last decades, doing so with an approach that is both artistic and historical. In focusing on the border crossings that have particularly affected the geopolitical space of the Greek peninsula over the last thirty years, the author succeeds in proposing a thorough outlook to the migratory question through the analysis of its cinematic portrayals by Greek filmmakers or filmmakers active in the Greek area from 1991 to 2016. In fact, through a sensitive and intelligent operation, Phillis sets issues of a purely cinematic nature alongside an eminently political analysis, developing these in parallel throughout the book. This dual nature of the discourse is masterfully held together through the careful — and never superficial — descriptive analysis of the films covered and the ability to compare the poetics of the various directors with the need to re-give voice to migrants and refugees. In fact, Phillis, while praising many directors in his book, seems never to lose sight of the fact that “Greek immigration cinema is produced from a hegemonic position of enunciation since relevant power structures empower indigenous filmmakers rather than the migrants represented on film” (p. 11).

Remember When We Were Queer: Yugoslav Queer Futurism

The article focuses on the Yugoslav video scene of the 1980s, specifically the videos of the music group Borghesia, and, in them, searches for the period’s ideas of alternative futures and ways of life. The group’s works placed sexually ambivalent bodies and non-heteronormative sexual practices at the centre of their imagery, which not only represented a deviation from the relatively conventional Yugoslav morality, but became a key position of enunciation for the alternative “dissidents.” The article therefore argues that Yugoslavia produced a specific queer futurism that once had a strong political potential.

The Remains of Empires in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of The Day

This paper aims to explore how Kazuo Ishiguro has found a position of enunciation away from the conflicting sentiments of otherness between the deeply rooted traditions of both Japan and England. With a particular focus on Ishiguro’s third novel, The Remains of the Day (1989), the paper highlights the shift of the scene from Japan in his first two novels, A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of the Floating World to a purely English setting in The Remains of the Day. Drawing on the postcolonial theoretical framework, the study examines Ishiguro’s literary production grapples with universal themes. It offers ways to question the ‘national greatness’ of both empires as represented through Japanese and British voices while narrating their personal histories and traumas. The main contribution of this study lies in extending arguments on the postcolonial engagement of Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, by focusing on his demythologization of both Eastern and Western Empires. The paper concludes that Ishiguro’s ‘fictional’ metamorphosis serves to subvert imperial landscapes, and convert them into mythical metaphors to approach universal themes and worlds, while simultaneously finding his own voice and territory.

Najla Said’s Looking for Palestine: Identity at Crossroads

In her memoir, Looking For Palestine: Growing up Confused In An Arab-American Family (2013), Najla Said, the Palestinian-American actress, playwright, author, and activist, has raised more questions than giving answers, negotiating the space between a position of enunciation and the multiple yet diverse cultural legacies and political powers at play. This paper extends arguments on her memoir by focusing on how she portrays Palestine, excavating the memories of her childhood and adolescent years. The remote homeland portrait, Palestine, the abstract space established through her father’s stories and media reports, is exposed to a new consciousness after her visit to Palestine in 1992 with her father, Edward Said, and family.  The paper explores how Najla Said’s journey to Palestine, along with the 9/11 attacks, was a pivotal turning point in her reconfiguration of self and identity while reconstructing the homeland.  The paper also examines the inconsistent images of the homeland and the host land where Najla Said suffers from confusion and disintegration, trying to liberate herself from both prejudices, reidentified not only with the homeland but also with the host land.  The paper analyzes Najla’s narrative, with its chronotopic relationship that shapes her new consciousness of history and the landscape.  It also examines how Najla Said traverses the space and friction between filiation and affiliation to live her life, to find her own voice and space in a more humane universal world that enjoys love, peace, and art.

Editing ourselves, naming ourselves: enunciation and subjects of the Taller Colectivo de Edición (Collective Edition Workshop)

The Collective Edition Workshop (Taller Colectivo de Edición, TCE) is an extracurricular course that integrates the Prison Extension Program of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). It is taught in university centers of the UBA 23rd program, where it displays a collective work of reflection and action around the meanings built as part of the editorial task and with the horizon of publication of a journal. We propose reading texts that address the names of journals to question and re-signify these names, discussing meanings rooted in discourses that relate to confinement and characterize people deprived of their freedom from a punitive and stigmatizing perspective. Reviewing the own name as an editing collective condenses our working logic, understanding that editing in this context involves an enunciative position that goes beyond the workshop’s framework and implies movement in subjective terms.

Field Diary Writing and Portuguese Teacher Training

This article focuses on the study of how Language and Literature undergraduate students from Brazilian universities register what they observe in schools and the way they involve themselves (or not) with the quality of the register and the reality examined. It analyses undergraduate students’ field diaries produced in three Brazilian public universities located in Bahia, Mato Grosso, and São Paulo, from 2009 to 2014. It aims, therefore, to reflect upon the importance of taking as a subject of analysis that which the training teacher him/herself writes in field journals, as a means of helping him/her construct an enunciative place from which it becomes possible to think about education and master the teaching profession. The data analysis allowed us to show that, in the registers of future teachers, there are, on the one hand, impasses that indicate a more passive enunciative position and, on the other hand, signs of a more active and curious position concerning the classroom.

Talking about your Generation: “Our Children” as a Trope in Climate Change Discourse

This article examines the rhetorical figuration of “our children” in climate change discourse. Based on an analysis of James Hansen’s book, Storms of my Grandchildren (2009), Barack Obama’s speech at the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015, and a newspaper article about the Norwegian environmental organization, The Grandparents’ Climate Campaign, it argues that the uses of “our children” reflect a notion of a family-timed future. The trope implies a “we” working as the active subject in the texts, while “our children” simply represents a future to be saved. This structure also authorizes “the parent” as a position of enunciation in climate change discourse. The article argues that the authority of this position is based on a heteronormative reproductive futurism.

“Recebi no Zap...Será qui é verdade?”: Discursos sobre o sujeito idoso internauta no Facebook

O objetivo deste estudo é analisar discursos sobre o sujeito idoso internauta em um grupo do Facebook, de modo a investigar como os posicionamentos discursivos inscritos nesse grupo e envoltos em relações de saber-poder emolduram dizeres sobre o idoso internauta. Para isso, parte-se da perspectiva teórica de Michel Foucault (1995, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011) e de suas contribuições para os estudos do discurso. Do ponto de vista metodológico, o presente estudo caracteriza-se como uma abordagem descritivo-interpretativa de cunho qualitativo. As análises mostram que, a partir das posições enunciativas enfocadas, o sujeito idoso internauta é visto em constante conflito com as tecnologias digitais e as utiliza para a assunção de uma pauta moral-religiosa.

Representações do imigrante boliviano: questões enunciativas

Os meios de comunicação são um espaço privilegiado para compreendermos como se constrói uma alteridade qualquer. Neste estudo, abordamos os modos como a imagem do imigrante boliviano pode ser construída a partir de diferentes posições enunciativas. Mais próximo ou mais distante, é corrente o discurso sobre o imigrante na mídia digital. No entanto, há também espaço para que o discurso do imigrante surja e, com ele, produzam-se outros efeitos de sentido que não somente passam pelo controle explícito das escolhas do enunciador. Para mostrar essas posições enunciativas, recorremos à Semiótica de linha francesa, elaborada por Algirdas Julien Greimas e seus colaboradores. Esperamos, assim, contribuir para as discussões acerca das representações, mas também das representatividades que grupos sociais minorizados devem buscar para não ficar à mercê da construção de suas imagens pelo grupo dominante.

A mobilização da memória discursiva no movimento ciberfeminista: análise da hashtag #metoo

O assédio, que faz parte das temáticas específicas abordadas pelo movimento social feminista (HIRATA et al., 2009), será discursivamente analisado neste artigo a partir da irrupção e circulação da hashtag #metoo #eutambém, que tomou as redes sociais no final de 2017. Ancorados na Análise do discurso francesa, mobilizaremos as noções de memória e des-memória discursivas (PAVEAU, 2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2017) procurando depreender como essas noções contribuem para instauração da polêmica como interincompreensão (MAINGUENEAU, 2008), isto é, gerando uma espécie de dissenso, manifestado a partir de diversas posições enunciativas. O movimento feminista tem ganhado cada vez mais força no ciberespaço, onde o chamado ciberfeminismo (LALONDE, 2012) vem se apropriando das ferramentas virtuais disponíveis. A hashtag, enquanto tecnopalavra (PAVEAU, 2017), participa da argumentação ciberativista como ponto de ancoragem do debate público acerca de determinada temática; portanto a hashtag é encarada, neste artigo, como sintetizadora de questões político-ideológicas.

Entre imperios: antiimperialismo e hispanoamericanismo en España contemporánea de Rubén Darío

Este artículo examina España contemporánea. Crónicas y retratos literarios (1901) de Rubén Darío para problematizar su lugar de enunciación y perspectiva. Para ello, en la primera parte, abordamos las formas de representar el imperialismo en las crónicas darianas, centrándonos principalmente en lo político, social y cultural. En la segunda parte, proponemos que en la obra de Darío emerge una perspectiva antiimperialista e hispanoamericanista, que intenta desmarcarse del pensamiento colonial y rechaza las prácticas imperialistas, relocalizando la cultura hispanoamericana frente a los Estados Unidos y Europa.

Exemple, explication et processus de démonstration

The article looks at the proving process in mathematics from a didactic perspective. The study seeks to identify what metamathematics knowledge is at stake when mathematicians produce proof of implications with universal quantifiers. For this reason, we propose a modelling of the proof process – from the manipulation of examples to the finished product – based on dialogic logic tools. This modelling leads us to a characterization of the enunciative position which is needed to elaborate proofs. The results are derived from two cases: one in arithmetic integers, another in plane geometry. Their comparison allows us to discuss the limits of a transversal approach to this meta-mathematical knowledge without taking into account the specificity of mathematical fields.

Panorama de la literatura sobre el conflicto armado en Colombia, siglos XX y XXI. Consideraciones sobre su desarrollo y evolución narrativa

Se busca identificar los cambios que, a nivel literario, se han llevado a cabo en la representación de la violencia durante más de un siglo, esto con relación al marco histórico, político y sociocultural que atraviesa la configuración de las diferentes propuestas literarias. Lo anterior, con el fin de reconocer cómo se ha narrado y representado la guerra en textos literarios y cuál ha sido el papel de los personajes que sufren directamente el acto violento en tales producciones. Además, se prestará especial atención al análisis del lugar enunciativo que tiene cada personaje dentro de la resignificación de la guerra en los relatos, con el objetivo de establecer cuáles son los discursos de los personajes involucrados en las tramas narrativas, sobre la violencia.

Formas de conhecer em Educação Especial: mal-estar, discurso médico e vida ordinária na escola

Este artigo busca questionar a pertinência e a premência do discurso médico em relação ao trabalho em sala de aula, propondo a discussão de seus efeitos e aventando uma alternativa epistêmica e discursiva fundamentada em uma experiência de formação em nível de extensão universitária. Como ponto de partida, o reconhecimento de um mal-estar evidenciado pelas queixas de angústia, desamparo e despreparo ante as demandas por ação pedagógica segundo uma epistemologia naturalista e reducionista. Escapar ao reducionismo do pensamento naturalista, do qual participa o ideal médico, pode passar por outra forma de construir conhecimento em educação e pelo fortalecimento da figura do professor, reafirmando seu protagonismo em assuntos pedagógicos e tomando o espaço educacional como manifesto na complexidade da vida e da linguagem ordinárias, incluindo suas manifestações ilógicas. São diferentes posições enunciativas que imprimem percursos escolares também diversos, cifrando destinos distintos para o conhecimento produzido em educação especial, bem como para alunos, escolas e professores.

Bilden som gör förflutenhet: Den tecknade serien, medieekologi och minne i Maus och Vi kommer snart hem igen

Title: Imagining Pastness. Comics, Media ecology and Memory in Maus and Vi kommer snart hem igenThe ethical and epistemological challenges accompanying representations of the past have been at the center of historiography at least since the days of Leopold von Ranke in the mid-nineteenth century. The artifice of representational forms, as well as the ideological entanglements of the position of enunciation, has always been in conflict with Ranke’s historiographical goal of telling the past as “it really was”. In the heyday of postmodernism and in the wake of the so-called linguistic turn, the epistemological and ethical impact of representational forms was widely debated. This paper uses two concepts presented during the postmodernist debates – Linda Hutcheon’s “historiographical metafiction” and Hayden White’s “practical past” – in a discussion of two graphic narratives about the Holocaust, Art Spiegelman’s canonical Maus. A Survivor’s Tale (1986, 1991) and Vi kommer snart hem igen (2018) by Jessica Bab Bonde and Peter Bergting. Adapting Hutcheon’s and White’s concepts to a posthumanist and media-ecological conceptuality, in which the worldmaking power of media is highlighted as a co-productive or sympoietic process, the paper “Imaging Pastness. Comics, Media Ecology and Memory” shows how the past is not represented, but rather emerges from the embodied participation in the medium as memory technology

O dispositivo de enunciação da primeira universidade com sistema de cotas do Nordeste

O artigo analisa o discurso da primeira universidade com sistema de cotas do Nordeste, a Universidade do Estado da Bahia (Uneb), observando a construção de seu ethos, seu contrato de comunicação e sua posição de enunciação em campanhas de vestibular, e o compara com o discurso de outra instituição de ensino superior, a Unijorge. Verifica-se que a Uneb, com uma posição pedagógica, mas cúmplice, constrói a imagem de instituição inclusiva e afrodescendente, diferentemente da Unijorge, cujo discurso hedonista revela o lugar de fala do jovem branco de classe média.

Posicionamentos do locutor-enunciador em contextos de imputação da responsabilidade enunciativa no texto acadêmico-científico

O trabalho investiga a responsabilidade enunciativa em textos acadêmicos produzidos por pesquisadores iniciantes, buscando especificamente descrever e interpretar os posicionamentos enunciativos do primeiro locutor-enunciador (L1/E1) quando da imputação de pontos de vista (PdV) a enunciadores segundos (e2). Teoricamente, o trabalho pauta-se nos postulados da Análise Textual dos Discursos (ATD), conforme Adam (2011), em articulação com o estudo de Guentchéva (1994), as observações de Authier-Revuz (1998, 2004) sobre a heterogeneidade enunciativa, entre outros autores. Nos textos analisados, mostrou-se mais recorrente a expressão de posicionamentos favoráveis por parte de L1/E1, em situações de retomadas, reformulações e comentários que reafirmam e validam o dizer do outro. Os resultados revelam que o pesquisador iniciante instaura uma forma de diálogo com os PdV alheios direcionado para a construção de um laço de responsabilização compartilhada.

Making Live and Letting Die

AbstractWith a focus on global cancer epidemics, the article discusses biopolitics in the Anthropocene against the background of a notion of dual governmentality, implying that efforts to make populations live and tendencies to let them die are intertwined. The conceptualization is based on postcolonial scholar Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics and cultural critic Lauren Berlant’s notion of slow death, developing Foucauldian understandings of biopower. Liver cancer and breast cancer serve as cases showing the operations of an Anthropocene necropolitics, that is, its modes of working through political neglect of carcinogenic effects of conditions of poverty in postcolonial capitalism and chemical modernity. The article introduces Anthropocene necropolitics as an analytics, useful for a critical understanding of the global cancer epidemics. But it aims also to transgress a merely critical approach and to contribute to the search for critically affirmative points of exit into new and more promising worlding practices. Therefore, it engages in the discussion of the Anthropocene concept’s lack of potentials to go beyond critique. Instead, the author tries out Donna Haraway’s proposal to complement the Anthropocene concept with the figuration of Chthulucene, calling for a shift of ethical stance and position of enunciation from the sovereign (white, Western) “I,” waging “war” on cancer to a “we,” based on a planetwide kinship of vulnerable bodies. Underlining that this shift can also commit to alternative modes of writing, the article ends with a poem, “Anthropos and the Canary in the Mine.” The poem situates the analysis in the entanglement of political, ethical, theoretical, and personal passions brought about by the author’s process of mourning her life partner’s cancer death.