Gótico brasileño: el cine de Walter Hugo Khouri y José Mojica Marins

This paper seeks to connect the concepts of “terror” and “horror” proposed by Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe to films by Brazilian directors Walter Hugo Khouri and José Mojica Marins. It will be discussed here how such concepts manifest themselves in the national context and in which senses, trapped somewhere between repetition and difference, Khouri and Mojica’s films can be deemed expressions of a Brazilian Gothic. Stemming from elements derived from Anglo-American criticism, but, highlighting the different meanings that these elements gain in Brazil. To interpret Brazilian films in the light of the Gothic means addressing the issue of “construction of meaning” in national history, as the Gothic has the potential to revive old traumas and generate discussions about specific social contexts.

Challenges to Parental Involvement in Children’s ESL Learning

This paper highlights the findings from the research question, namely: “How do the participating parents work with their children at home?” This is a qualitative study involving seven participating parents of struggling readers of ESL in a Malaysian primary classroom. Interviews were conducted to obtain information from the participants and data was inductively analysed encompassing a co-construction of meaning between the participants’ expressions and researcher’s own interpretation. Two major themes emerged from the data namely involvement; and challenges. In this paper, the results of one of the main themes developed, that is challenges will be discussed. This paper focuses on three types of challenges reported by the participating parents of this study which are “parents and family factors”, “school and teacher factors” and “child factors”. The findings of this study suggest some implications for the system surrounding struggling readers in the Malaysian context including strengthening home-school relationship and establishing educational program for parents.

CONSTRUCTING A SELF BETWEEN IMAGE AND TEXT: READING BECHDEL’S FUN HOME

Graphic memoirs offer a visual representation of the relationship between a moment and the construction of memory. McCloud describes the work of the comic author and the reader as a dance between “the seen and the unseen”. This is what makes the medium of graphic memoirs unique, as it “gives so much to its audience while asking so much from them as well” (1993, p. 92). My aim in this paper is to ascertain the impact using graphic conventions has on the effective and affective construction of meaning and identity in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) and howr The Gutter becomes even more significant in graphic memoirs, because the use of panels can fracture the flow of the narrative into the sequenced segments which alternate with the blank spaces of the gutters. These blank spaces represent an effort to redefine the “connections between memory and history, private experience and public life” via a written account and the “act of witness” represented by a combination of the visual and the verbal (Cvetkovich, 2008, 111-20). Using this mix of image and text, Bechdel creates an almost palimpsestic effect as a majority of panels show items layered over other images, indicating a blending between the narrative of Bechdel’s real life experience and the representation of that life experience in the text. For the reader, this can imply a way to address the gaps in knowledge not only for them but also for Bechdel herself.

De la cognition incarnée au corps cognitivisé

"From Embodied Cognition to the Cognitivised Body. The construction of meaning, before being a linguistic or neuronal phenomenon, is a sensitive phenomenon, indebted to the bodily experience of the world, the lived body. Varela’s neurophenomenological approach, which is inspired by the intertwining of the subject and the world as proposed by Merleau-Ponty, can only take in charge an ordinary production of meaning. What about when one produces a concept or a work of art? In other words, how does the body-mind relationship function in the act of creation? If the construction of meaning starts from the subject, in the sense that it is the subject who by his embodied cognitive activity produces meaning, the construction of a concept or a work of art solicits a super-personal force that engenders the subject himself: a heccéité, in the sense of Deleuze. What does this engendering of the subject mean and how does it intervene in the act of creation? In other words, why must the subject be somehow “recreated” in order to create? It is only when thought is destabilized by a point of crisis that it becomes a creative device that plays out between the chaotic intensities from which it tears itself away and the composition of a consistency. The starting point of the creative thought is the stopping of the thought and its continuation on another plane: a thought that leaves the field of cognition and recognition and derails, carried away by a sensitive line of flight, produced in the body, towards the inorganic and impersonal plane of a super-personal power. With the act of creation, the embodied cognition swings towards a de-subjectivation: the cognition becomes then a “chaognition”, an impersonal faculty mobilizing the power of passivity. Keywords: cognition, embodiment, subject, meaning, creation, heccéité, de-subjectivation. "

https://www.ijherjournal.com/journaldetail/strategic-behaviour-in-the-service-of-comprehension-of-texts-in-frensh-as-foreign-language_120#:~:text=STRATEGIC%20BEHAVIOUR%20IN%20THE%20SERVICE%20OF%20COMPREHENSION%20OF%20TEXTS%20IN%20FRENSH%20AS%20FOREIGN%20LANGUAGE

This article proposes to emphasize the importance of strategies in the construction of meaning by reading in French as a foreign language. To this end, we have chosen to use the data collected as part of the «French language improvement» course for 3rd year students with a Bachelor’s degree in Translation at Badji Mokhtar University in Annaba. Our doctoral research aims to describe the strategies of understanding by these adult readers while trying to verify how they proceed to overcome their difficulties‎. Keywords: Reading, Frensh As Foreign Language, Comprehension, Strategies, Text.

Differences and similarities in the conceptualization of COVID-19 and other diseases in the first Italian lockdown

Several studies have highlighted the flexible character of our conceptual system. However, less is known about the construction of meaning and the impact of novel concepts on the structuring of our conceptual space. We addressed these questions by collecting free listing data from Italian participants on a newly–and yet nowadays critical–introduced concept, i.e., COVID-19, during the first Italian lockdown. We also collected data for other five illness-related concepts. Our results show that COVID-19’s representation is mostly couched in the emotional sphere, predominantly evoking fear—linked to both possible health-related concerns and social-emotional ones. In contrast with initial public debates we found that participants did not assimilate COVID-19 neither completely to severe illnesses (e.g., tumor) nor completely to mild illnesses (e.g., flu). Moreover, we also found that COVID-19 has shaped conceptual relations of other concepts in the illness domain, making certain features and associations more salient (e.g., flu-fear; disease-mask). Overall, our results show for the first time how a novel, real concept molds existing conceptual relations, testifying the malleability of our conceptual system.

Meaning and wellness: A comparative psychobiography on Helen Suzman and Beyers Naudé

This comparative psychobiographical study provides an in-depth exploration of meaning in the lives of two extraordinary individuals, Helen Suzman and Beyers Naudé. A comparison of the construction of meaning, as an important aspect of wellness within the holistic wellness model, is given for these South African anti-apartheid activists. Suzman (1917–2009) dedicated her career to opposing apartheid policy as a parliamentary politician. Naudé (1915–2004) was a renowned public figure dedicated to social justice in his role as a theologian. The holistic wellness model views the Neo-Adlerian life task of spirituality as crucial to ascribing meaning to life events, acknowledging multiple potential sources of meaning. The differences and similarities pertaining to the domains of meaning-making of these two subjects are explored. The subjects, who differed regarding biographical variables, were found to share a common sense of purpose within the same socio-political milieu. The study findings confirm that commitment to diverse sources of meaning and generativity are central to meaningfulness. This comparative psychobiographical study contributes to the eugraphic exploration of the meaning-making processes of these exemplary individuals.

Buddhists Herminutics: An Analysis of Dhammapada in Sustainable Development

Gautama Buddha, the emblem of peace and love, pioneer of Buddhism, was born in Kapilabastu, Lumbini, Nepal. The peace and love. Compassion in Buddhism is the basic element of Sustainable development. Thus Buddha is the pioneer of sustainable development. Buddha’s text Dhammapada in the present sustainable era is more relevant than past. The paper deals with the hermeneutic analysis of Buddhist’s text Dhammapada in sustainable development. Hermeneutics generally starts from the context of the historical text and ends with the contemporary general understanding. Hermeneutics is concerned with the construction of meaning within the relationship between author/text/reader, and the overarching paradigm. It is the relationship between Buddha, Dhammapada, and sustainable development. It follows six steps as below: 1. Observation and Contextualization; 2. Structural Analysis; 3. Correlation and Interpretation; 4. Fusion of Horizons in Application; 5. Reconstruction, and 6. Generalization of Understanding of the text. The main objective of the study is to find out the contemporary contextual general understanding of Dhammapada in the sustainable development era. The final standpoint of the hermeneutic analysis of Dhammapada on sustainable development is that the peace and prosperity of the people on the planet are only possible through the meaningful partnership in environment protection and right livelihood.

Double exposures: Embodiment, vulnerability and agency in Letizia Battaglia’s photography

Letizia Battaglia is best known for her photojournalistic work during the 1970s and 1980s, when she assembled a vast archive of images of Mafia victims and perpetrators and of poor Sicilians. In recent years, she has created captivating new photographs named Re-elaborations. These works combine in a single frame her historic photographs of Mafia violence with new subjects – women, children and nature. This article investigates how Battaglia’s earlier and new photographs have succeeded in raising awareness about Mafia violence. Engaging with gender and visual theory, the article shows how these works offer compelling narratives of violence and poverty that capture the attention of viewers, involve them in the construction of meaning and prompt empathetic reactions. Despite having received many international awards, only recently has Battaglia’s work been recognized with significant retrospectives in Italy. No major studies on her work have been produced to date, and her recent photographs have received scarce critical attention. This article intends to fill that lacuna, enrich existing conversations on the artist and foster future investigations of her work.