Neural Relax

We present an algorithm for data preprocessing of an associative memory inspired to an electrostatic problem that turns out to have intimate relations with information maximization

Políticas de memoria desde los discursos cotidianos : la despolitización del pasado reciente en el Chile actual

Un debate actual en Chile en el plano político-institucional son los efectos políticos que implica recordar u olvidar un pasado reciente signado como conflictivo y violento. Se analiza la producción de políticas de memoria en un ámbito poco explorado: los discursos cotidianos. Desde una perspectiva cualitativa y con un enfoque discursivo, se analiza el material obtenido en 5 grupos de discusión conformados por diferentes posiciones: (a) ideológicas (izquierda y derecha), (b) generacionales (adulto, adulto joven y joven) y (c) involucramiento directo en las violaciones a los derechos humanos ocurridas entre 1973 y 1990 (víctimas de represión política, familiar de víctimas, uniformados y familiar de uniformados). La muestra fue estructural y se convocó a 48 personas. Del análisis resalta la imposibilidad de una reconciliación nacional, planteándose más bien una convivencia con el conflicto entre distintas versiones del pasado. Las tácticas discursivas desplegadas para convivir implican la producción de políticas que apuntan a la despolitización de la memoria, restándole potencia en tanto dispositivo de reflexión y debate respecto de cómo convive y cómo quiere convivir la sociedad chilena.One of the current debates in the Chilean political-institutional field concerns the political effects of remembering or forgetting a recent past marked as conflicted and violent. The article analyzes the production of politics of memory in a field that has hardly been explored before: everyday discourse. From a qualitative perspective and with a discursive approach, the authors analyze material from 5 discussion groups made up of people who differ regarding their: (a) ideology (left and right), (b) generation (adult, young adult and late adolescent), and (c) involvement in human rights violations between 1973 and 1990 (victim of political repression, victims' relative, military personnel, and relative of military personnel). A structural sample was used, comprising 48 people in total. The analysis reveals the impossibility of attaining national reconciliation, suggesting instead a coexistence with the conflict between different versions of the past. The discursive tactics employed for this coexistence involve the production of policies aimed at depoliticizing memory, thus diminishing its power as a means for reflection and debate regarding how Chileans live together in society and how they want to coexist

Antonio Preciado and the Afro Presence in Ecuadorian Literature

This dissertation examines the literary trajectory of Antonio Preciado Bedoya (1941), a major Afroecuadorian writer, poet and diplomat whose work spans more than 50 years. Although relatively unknown outside of Ecuador, this dissertation will address that lack of recognition by studying his work in the more general context of the African Diaspora. It will reflect upon Preciado’s re-definition of Ecuadorian identity in the new millennium. Preciado is a poet who portrays the Afro presence as central to the national experience of ethnic diversity and the construction of a pluricultural Ecuador. He emphasizes that Afroecuadorians be recognized as an integral component of national identity, and this all encompassing paradigm affirms the existence, subjectivity, and importance of Ecuador’s Afro descendants. Additionally, this dissertation examines Afro-Latin American diasporic thought. It seeks to analyze the various ways in which Afro-diasporic subjects assert their identities and being in the world, particularly in Ecuador. Preciado’s poetry stresses the positive values of the black experience by concentrating on negritude. According to the poet, a spiritual awakening found in negritude and the African connection will lead to the physical liberation of Blacks. In other words, freedom for the people of African descent is predicated upon the conscious activation of one’s Africanness and ultimately, their own agency. Many of his works are rooted in the ethnic memory of past experiences which he recovers through the African tradition of the talking drums. His poems reflect his African heritage and emphasize black ethnic identity as positive. Finally, his Afro-centered worldview stresses the propagation of an ‘other’s’ sensibility, the tolerance of difference, respect for all mankind regardless of racial and ideological difference, identification with and love of nature and universality. While Preciado’s poetry is most definitely Afro-centered, his works also address a wide-range of themes that transcend geographical and cultural borders. Therefore, his Afro-centric poetry should not be interpreted as isolationist. His poetic message reflects not only a black experience, but he has also adapted his poetry to the national needs of his country which reflect a collective experience, thus utilizing his personal trials to convey the pathos of the Ecuadorian nation