Our ancestors, by Italo Calvino, as allegory of modern subject

• Grant number: 12/23692-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2013
• End date: April 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo Sterzi de Carvalho Júnior
• Grantee: Juliana Zanetti de Paiva
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/12944-6 - Os NOSSOS ANTEPASSADOS, by Italo Calvino, as an allegory of the modern SUBJETC, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Italo Calvino, in his book Our ancestors, invites us to a critical reflection about contemporary society, which he does not understand as postmodernity, but as an episode of what is defined as modernity. This contemporaneity is located in a context of violence, of destruction of nature in the name of progress, of exacerbated consumerism to sustain the economy, of social relations mediated and defined by commodities - and the subjective ideals it imposes are that of the denial of human in favor of assertion of market logic and a reason called instrumental by the Frankfurt School. The aim of our study is to reflect on the main characters of Calvino's book as allegorical figurations of the modern subject: of ourselves, contemporary women and men, as inheritors of the project of modernity initiated by our ancestors and which we experience until these days. In parallel, we will proceed to a discussion of the concepts of modernity and modern subject, always in the light of Calvino's work.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

PAIVA, Juliana Zanetti de. Os nossos antepassados, by Italo Calvino, as an allegory of the modern subject. 2015. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem Campinas, SP.