Fabio Akcelrud Durão

Giros em falso no debate da Teoria

This paper investigates the current crisis of literary studies as it is expressed by the transition from literary theory to Theory. Comparing two recent works, which became important references in the debate in the United States, this essay calls attention to the undeniable conceptual progress brought about by Theory, which, however, took place amid an increasing alienation and potential philistinism. This article ends with remarks on how certain theoretical discourses fi t into the current academic mode of production - more than ever ruled by quantitative parameters.

A imagem de pensamento como forma

This text strives to characterize the thought-image (Denkbild) as a genre that combines philosophy and literature, concept and image. The main argument therein is that due to its formal peculiarities, the thought-image is endowed with both a strong intersubjetive thrust and the capacity to wrest the non-identical from everyday experiences. From this combination a kind of writing emerges that is intrinsically practical, and which deserves to be recuperated in the present.

Arthur Bispo do Rosário: The Ruse of Brazilian Art

São Paulo’s Biennial is by far the most important art event in Brazil. Its thirtieth edition, titled The Imminence of Poetics [A Iminência das Poéticas], took place from 7 September to 9 December 2012, at the Exhibition Centre in Ibirapuera Park as usual, and was attended by more than 520,000 people. With generous state support, abundant advertising and free admission, the Bienal naturally belongs to the fabric of large-scale events in the city. Every other year it shares the listings with carnival, São Paulo Fashion Week, Book Fair and many other activities. As always, one simply had to enter the Ibirapuera main building before seeing waves of people — although not the habitual gallery highbrows or inescapable poseurs but school children, teenagers kissing in between installations and unassuming families in jeans and soccer jerseys; in short, the common people. One just had to behold all this to have the impression that art and community are not mutually exclusive terms, that here, at the margin of the world market of art, the crisis of the aesthetic – the uncertainty concerning the status of art – wouldn’t be so unavoidable after all. And yet, doubt emerges: the noisy school children running all over, the hormonal adolescents obviously thinking about something else, the family taking advantage of free admission could all be enjoying themselves in quite a different way, even the very opposite way of how one would assume art should really be appreciated. The question is a serious one and by no means rhetorical: whether the Bienal is a true artistic event, whether it allows for what one would deem genuine aesthetic experience or whether it is but a simulacrum of itself, shallow and inane entertainment like any other in the city of São Paulo, its only particularity deriving from the cultural capital associated with the word ‘art’. To put it somewhat extremely, if one takes into consideration the weight of the Bienal, its failure as a sonorous void, nothingness amid so many works and things, could be indicative of the fate of art as a whole in Brazil. The claim that no true art has ever taken shape in the country will surely sound exaggerated, if not absurd, for readers in the developed world; and yet this overall nagging sense of inauthenticity has been a lingering, strong topos in Brazilian cultural criticism. It was famously articulated by film critic Paulo Emı́lio Salles Gomes when he observed that

An Interview with Sérgio de Carvalho

Fabio Akcelrud Durão Companhia do Latão is a theatrical group based in the city of São Paulo. Its main interest lies in critical thinking on contemporary society; its work includes shows, pedagogical activities, the publishing of Vintém magazine as well as a series of artist experiments. The group originated in the staging of Essay to Danton (1996), directed by Sérgio de Carvalho, a free adaptation of Georg Büchner’s Danton’s Death. For more information (in Portuguese) see Bhttp://www.companhiadolatao.com.br/ .

Reflexões sobre a metodologia de pesquisa nos estudos literários

A relacao entre literatura e pesquisa e conflituosa. Se por um lado e essa ultima que torna factivel a insercao dos estudos literarios na universidade, por outro, quando convertida em uma pratica dominante, a pesquisa tende a deformar tanto obras quanto leitores. O presente artigo pretende caracterizar concisamente o campo de forcas gerado pela ascensao da pesquisa nos estudos literarios em diversos de seus aspectos mais relevantes, desde a configuracao do ato interpretativo ate o funcionamento dos aparatos educacionais.

Sobre a literatura da destruição e o Ulisses, de James Joyce

Resumo: O presente artigo, originalmente concebido como uma palestra, esta dividido em duas partes. Na primeira, aborda uma crise atual da cultura, segundo a qual nao e mais possivel vislumbrar o que seria sua alteridade enfatica: a cultura parece nao ter outro. Apos defender a necessidade de recuperacao da negatividade para o âmbito das artes, o texto volta-se para o Ulisses , de James Joyce, para argumentar que o nucleo do monologo interior, a tecnica narrativa que ao maximo representa a interioridade psicologica, possui um traco inorgânico, que permeara o romance em sua segunda parte. No entanto, a fragmentacao do corpo dos personagens e a recusa final do antropomorfismo nao excluem o humano. A conclusao e que, a partir de Ulisses , torna-se possivel imaginar o que seria a comunicacao da dor. Palavras-chave: cultura; negatividade; James Joyce; Ulisses ; monologo interior; dor. Abstract: This paper, originally conceived as a keynote talk, is divided into two parts. In the first one, it discusses a current crisis in culture, according to which it is no longer possible to glimpse the other of culture. After arguing for the need to recuperate negativity for the realm of art, the text proposes a reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses that investigates the role of the interior monologue in the representation of psychological immediacy. While this technique meant an advance in the representation of psyche, it also contained in itself the kernel of inorganic thrust that marks the second part of the novel. However, the characters’ fragmentation and the eventual refusal of anthropomorphism does exclude the human. The conclusion is that, taking Ulysses as a starting point, it is possible to imagine what the communication of pain would be. Keywords: culture; negativity; James Joyce; Ulysses ; interior monologue; pain.