Rebuilding the Angolan body politic: global and local projections of identity and protest in O Herói/The Hero (Zézé Gamboa, 2004)

This article uses a reading of Zézé Gamboa's award-winning 2004 feature as a basis for an exploration of post-conflict Angolan screen culture and of its impact both at home and internationally. It considers how O Herói’s depiction of a war-torn nation, and of the impediments to its reconstruction, negotiates between a socially-engaged film-making practice, informed by local tradition and the tenets of ‘Third Cinema’, and the demands of a globalised cinema market. The film achieves this compromise by deploying allegorical and symbolic tropes, familiar from the literature, cinema, and political discourse of the era of Angolan liberation (notably, the concept of a socialist ‘new man’), to complicate a superficially optimistic story of post-conflict rehabilitation, and to insinuate a critique of the authoritarian practices and neo-liberal policies of the MPLA government. Further to this, the article identifies strategies through which the film advertises the gulf between its fiction of individual triumph over adversity and, on the other hand, the grimmer reality of Angola’s post-conflict malaise. Finally, it considers how the film’s construction of an encrypted allegory also prompts the question of whether or not film production that depends upon the funding and agendas of international capital and neo-colonial powers can ever foster the resurgence of a genuinely ‘popular’ and progressive culture in post-conflict Angola

Research on Social Engagement with a Rabbitic User Interface

Companions as interfaces to smart rooms need not only to be easy to interact with, but also to maintain long-term relationships with their users. The FP7-funded project SERA (Social Engagement with Robots and Agents) contributes to knowledge about and modeling of such relationships. One focal activity is an iterative field study to collect real-life long-term interaction data with a robotic interface. The first stage of this study has been completed. This paper reports on the set-up and the first insights

Bridging the gap? The impact of a media literacy educational intervention on news media literacy, political knowledge, political efficacy among lower-educated youth

Scholars generally agree that there is a gap between lower- and higher-educated citizens on civic competence, which solidifies during adolescence. This two-wave panel study examines how an educational intervention focused on media literacy influences civic competence among lower-educated youth (age 16 to 26). Additionally, the level of civic involvement among participants is tested on three measures of civic competence: news media literacy, political efficacy and political knowledge. The findings suggest that the educational program has influenced the level of political efficacy and news media literacy. Furthermore, participants with the most active involvement in the program, i.e. co-created the educational video material, also showed the strongest improvements of political efficacy and political knowledge

Die Potentiale von e-business in der Wertschöpfungskette

Unsere Gesellschaft macht sich auf den Weg zur sogenannten Informationsgesellschaft. Im ökonomischen Bereich zeigt sich dieser Trend durch die verstärkte Anwendung von Internet-Technologien. Der Trend der letzten Jahre zeigt deutlich, daß die Verbreitung des Internet und deren wirtschaftliche Nutzung nicht mehr aufzuhalten sind. Wir befinden uns inmitten einer tiefgreifenden Umgestaltung des wirtschaftlichen Lebens. Dieser Entwicklung können sich auch Unternehmen nicht entziehen. Das Internet und die damit verbundenen Anwendungen bringen bei einem immer stärker werdenden Wettbewerbs- und Kostendruck Chancen mit sich, Unternehmensabläufe neu zu gestalten, um sich so von Konkurrenten zu differenzieren und somit Wettbewerbsvorteilen zu erzielen. Integrierte Informationssysteme, die mit Hilfe des Internet arbeiten, machen es möglich, die Wertschöpfungskette zwischen Angestellten, Kunden, Lieferanten und Händlern neu zu gestalten und somit Kosten zu sparen, kundenfreundlich zu agieren und für alle Beteiligten Vorteile zu erzielen. Das weitreichende Potential des Internet ermöglicht gar eine komplette Neustrukturierung der Wertschöpfungskette eines Unternehmens und hat somit Auswirkungen auf alle Unternehmensbereiche. Die klassischen Grenzen der Unternehmung beginnen sich nach innen wie nach außen zu verändern, teilweise auch aufzulösen. Viele Unternehmen nutzen die Potentiale des Internet jedoch nur in Teilbereichen und schöpfen nicht das gesamte Spektrum der Möglichkeiten aus. Insbesondere die internen Wertschöpfungsprozesse, die große Chancen beinhalten, werden häufig vernachlässigt

Introduction : Saramago and the politics of literary quotation

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian e Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolviment

NÓS MATÁMOS O CÃO-TINHOSO: A EMASCULAÇÃO DE ÁFRICA E A CRISE DO PATRIARCA NEGRO

ESTA LEITURA ENFOCA A DENÚNCIA HONWANIANA À SISTEMÁTICA DESVIRILIZAÇÃO, PELO PODER COLONIAL, DO HOMEM NEGRO. A HUMILHAÇÃO E BRUTALIZAÇÃO QUE HONWANA REPRESENTA REFLECTEM A IMBRICAÇÃO, NO LUSOTROPICALISMO, DE HIERARQUIAS OPRESSIVAS DE RAÇA E DE GÊNERO, E A NECESSÁRIA SUPRESSÃO DO PATRIARCA NEGRO PARA SUSTER O MITO DA “CIVILIZAÇÃO” PORTUGUESA A SER “SEMEADA” NA “BARBÁRIE” AFRICANA. A ASSOCIAÇÃO DE MASCULINIDADE HEGEMÓNICA COM UM PROSSEGUIMENTO VIOLENTO DA AUTORIEDADE COLONIAL VAI MARGINALIZANDO OS VALORES QUE O TEXTO ATRIBUI À MASCULINIDADE INDÍGENA, ASSIM NECESSITANDO A CONSCIÊNCIA INSUBMISSA E A INSURREIÇÃO ARMADA