Introduction

UID/HIS/04666/2013Introduction to the volumeauthorsversionpublishe

Utopia III or an Ambiguous Humanist Utopia for the Second Millennium

UID/HIS/04666/2013Portuguese literature does not have many examples of successful and renowned utopias, though the considerable amount of published utopias written in foreign languages and translated to Portuguese language being quite relevant. However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, almost at the eve of the second millennium an important Portuguese utopia was published: Utopia III, written by Pina Martins (1998). This long novel is structured as being the sequel of More’s Utopia, presenting the history and actual status of the mother of all literary utopias. The question at the basis of the whole novel is, “What would More’s Utopia be like today?” The main goal of this text will be to presente a literary analysis of Utopia III, focusing on the humanist principles and their adaptation to contemporary society, the search for a harmonious relationship between city and nature, the defence of a Portuguese identity and the appeal to a humanist renewalpublishersversionpublishe

Comparative analysis of More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, and Miguel Real’s O Último Europeu 2284

UID/HIS/04666/2013Being a creation based on Christian Humanism, Utopia went through several changes, many of which are already present in More’s narrative. Bacon’s New Atlantis brought one of the first radical transformations about. The closed, agrarian, and immutable Utopian island opened itself to the world and promoted change through controlled scientific research. However much of what More conceived was maintained: New Atlantis is still an island lost somewhere in the middle of the ocean, protecting its privacy and secrecy, evolving through the inclusion of selected external information, but avoiding exchanged. In Miguel Real’s O Último Europeu 2284 [The Last European 2284] the narrative starts in part of the European continent, with diffused borders, but unquestionably defined as a perfect utopian society, technological and scientifically advanced, and actively engaged in providing its citizens with the necessary otium, in the sense of the Greek word skole, meaning intellectual activity. After the destruction of this utopian and pacifist Europe, there is the creation of a new one, in the almost desert island of Pico, in the Azores. Once again, this utopia is crashed, and what endures as hope for future generations is a handwritten manuscript describing the two shattered future Utopias. The thread to explore in the paper is that of how humanism evolved through the last 500 years, taking these three paradigmatic literary utopias as base stones.authorsversionpublishe

Emile Souvestre and Cordwainer Smith

UID/HIS/04666/2013Zaha Hadid’s statement that is used as an epigraph to this book is also the cornerstone of this essay: “Non puo esserci progresso senza affrontare l’ignoto”. This sentence has an ambiguous meaning and can be interpreted in at least two different ways: either as a natural challenge or as an aggressive defiance. This ambiguity encompasses the relationship between individuals, communities and progress, reminding the image of Janus, each facing a different side, both forming the same and a different entity. It is a natural and complementary ambivalence. Every endeavour undertook by promoters of progress has a degree of uncertainty, a pending threat of failure, and the outcome always produces positive and negative consequences frequently in uneven ways. Culturally, in a consistent way at least from the beginning of modernity, Western civilisation has regarded progress as a natural unstoppable endeavour. Sometimes even as a duty of every rational educated person – to pass (or trespass) the frontier of the known, to act, to evolve, to transform, to change, and to discover the “God given world”. This almost linear way to understand progress, to view reality from a dominant, sometimes exclusive point of view, tends to erase the notion and effects of negative consequences both on individuals and on communities, assumed by the dominant culture as acceptable collateral damages in the name/notion of rational evolution. In this essay, the main goal is to defy this dominant trend of evolution as based mainly on material, objective, rational progress, and defy the unique view of a future based on quantifiable and technological evolution. This challenge will be done with the comparative analysis of two literary texts: Emile Souvestre’s Le monde tel qu'il sera and Cordwainer Smith’s “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard”.authorsversionpublishe

Introduction

UID/HIS/04666/2013Introduction to the volumeauthorsversionpublishe

Two Technological Dystopias: Le monde tel que'il sera and Alpha Ralpha Boulevard

The aim of this paper is to corn pare two technological dystopias: Emile Souvestre's Le Monde tel qu'il sera (1846) and Cordwainer Smith's "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" (1961). Both texts present dystopian societies experienced by many of its inhabitants as being the best of possible worlds. The above authors question the massive use of technology, worry about what technology can do to human beings, how it can dehumanize them. They reveal serious social and moral concerns regarding the less privileged. These are excluded from the benefits of"Utopia" while making it possible. Both authors are childs of.. their time: they live in a period of national pride, they can see the shadows behind the luminous, the dangers resulting from human beings playing God with nature and humanity. Also, they are innovators: Souvestre announces dystopian science fiction and Smith renews with the genre announcing the New Wave movement in Anglo-American science fiction

From More’s natural Utopia to Cordwainer Smith’s artificial pseudo-utopia

UID/HIS/04666/2013Comparative analysis of Thomas More's utopia and Cordwainer Smith's short story "Alpha ralpha Bolevard"publishersversionpublishe

Cosmos fantásticos: dois exemplos

Nos dias de hoje, a fantasia parece ser um dos últimos redutos de humanidade perante a crueldade e a violência que domina o mundo. Enquanto assistimos impotentes ao desregramento da razão, ao desrespeito pelos mais elementares direitos, à arrogância dos maniqueísmos, à desvalorização da édca, à perversão das idéias, alguns autores contemporâneos usam a fantasia para falar de valores, de direitos e deveres, de medos e de sonhos, de respeito pelo outro, mas também de coragem, de demandas, de esperança, de sacrifícios assumidos em nome de um colectivo, valores universais expressos em todas as culturas e em todos os tempos que parecem afastados do primeiro plano das consciências

O MARKETING NA ERA DIGITAL – CASO DAS LOJAS FRAGATA

Com as mudanças registadas no comportamento do consumidor, caracterizado em grande parte pelos avanços tecnológicos e pela popularização da internet, a necessidade de empresas e clientes estabelecerem relações mais estreitas é premente e simultaneamente facilitada. Este trabalho foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de avaliar como as ações de marketing com base nos meios digitais, podem influenciar a atividade organizacional das firmas comerciais contribuindo direta ou indiretamente para o crescimento das vendas. Para alcançar esse objetivo estipulou-se alguns objetivos específicos que visam: i) dissertar sobre o marketing particularmente o marketing digital com base numa abordagem sobre os principais conceitos, ferramentas e estratégias; ii) analisar a importância dos meios digitais para o marketing como ferramentas de retenção, estreitamento e fidelização de clientes; iii) avaliar o papel desempenhado pelas ferramentas de marketing digital na gestão estratégica da empresa; iv) e apresentar subsídios que visam potencializar o uso de ferramentas de marketing digital pelas Lojas FRAGATA. A pesquisa partiu de uma análise de carácter descritivo exploratório a fim de descrever, analisar e interpretar dados sem qualquer tipo de interferência por parte do pesquisador, sendo, portanto aferida através de levantamento de dados a partir de entrevistas semi-estruturadas, com um guião composto por um conjunto de perguntas previamente estabelecidas sobre o problema e aplicadas ao diretor geral das Lojas Fragata, ao responsável da área de marketing e ao provedor da mesma, bem como a aplicação de um questionário estruturado com treze perguntas, sendo todas de natureza fechada e aplicados à 148 inquiridos. A partir da análise dos dados e conforme os resultados, foi possível constatar que a aposta no marketing digital contribui para o aumento dos resultados da Fragata, face á interatividade com o cliente que aumentou assim como a visibilidade da marca. De um modo geral os resultados obtidos foram favoráveis, constatando que na verdade a aplicabilidade de ferramentas de marketing digital exercem um papel fundamental no sucesso das organizações