Sumários

A Língua como coordenada cultural e a sua função na construção de identidades comunitárias. O case study da Lusofonia.

1 Março 2023, 18:30 • Annabela Rita

A Língua como coordenada cultural e a sua função na construção de identidades comunitárias (regional, nacional, transnacional, de blocos linguístico-culturais, etc.). O case study da Lusofonia. Intervenção do Prof. Doutor Renato Epifânio (Presidente do Movimento Internacional Lusófono e da PASC; Director da revista Nova Águia).

Antes e/ou depois da aula, como habitualmente, foi enviada directamente aos alunos toda a documentação de apoio à reflexão: ppts de apoio à exposição com hiperligações, bibliografia sobre os temas (ebooks na drive), remissões para vídeos da videoteca.

A Língua como coordenada cultural e a sua função na construção de identidades comunitárias. O case study da Lusofonia.

1 Março 2023, 17:00 • Annabela Rita

Cultura e Utopia

1 Março 2023, 12:30 • Mário Vítor Bastos

As Distopias de Aldous Huxley e George Orwell e o estudo das culturas.

Lévi-Strauss - Race and History (Wed)

1 Março 2023, 08:00 • Chiara Nifosi

During this last class on Lévi-Strauss, we introduced another key notion of Race and History, that is to say progress. Particularly, we analyzed the figurative language that Lévi-Strauss uses to relativize the concept of progress: the metaphor of the gambler and of the knight (chess), through which he emphasizes the unpredictability of progress, as well as its gain & loss logic; the metaphor of the microscope, the metaphor of the distorting glass, the metaphor of the train, which all aim to stress the altered perception that people tend to have of different cultural practices. The metaphor of the train in particular has a double purpose:

- Creating a direct connection with scientific knowledge, namely the theory of relativity, in order to show that it is applicable to the study of cultures only to a certain extent. This way, L-S defines the scope and methodology of his discipline, anthropology, as in continuity with hard sciences but also independent from them and more apt to address cultural problems.

- Explaining that we tend to closely observe trains that proceed in the same direction as ours, while we tend to ignore trains passing in the opposite direction (cultures that we perceive as not relevant to or distant from ours).

We reflected on these metaphors and we agreed on the fact that they tend to build a Western frame of reference, which remains L-S' field of action, while they also implicate a Western audience in the debate on racism.

Finally, we tried to put L-S' text in dialogue with other texts read during the quarter, particularly Eliot's, Steiner's and Spivak's texts, especially in relation to the passage on p. 26-27, where the author stigmatize the tendency to consider cultures that have not known the same development as ours (based on our biased criteria of what development is) as identical.

We concluded by going back to the metaphor of the gambler, since L-S recognizes that progress is tightly connected to the level of interaction between cultures, and that isolated cultures are disadvantaged; on the contrary, larger pools of gamblers grouped together will know a faster technological development.

Notes towards the Definition of Culture, de T. S. Eliot, 1

28 Fevereiro 2023, 15:30 • Miguel Ramalhete Gomes

Discussão da introdução de Notes towards the Definition of Culture, de T. S. Eliot.

T. S. Eliot. Notes towards the Definition of Culture. Faber & Faber, 1962, pp. 13-49.