Special attention will be given to the imagery documentary record, seen as an inventory of social and cultural practices that contributes to human and social sciences in the mapping and interpretation of Amazonian realities.

According to the organizers of the debate, "science and the technology perspective associated with it tend to understand the Amazon as a repository of natural resources, biodiversity and genetic 'bank', which must be harnessed to meet human needs, specifically to answer the hegemonic model of progress."

However, the researchers warn that "science and technology, as drivers of rational development and of the ideals of human flourishing behind it, oppose the traditional knowledge, meaning knowledge and ways of life of people and local communities, considering that they constitute an obstacle to modernization."

Given the possible tensions arising from the meeting of these narratives, some questions arise:

• Are traditional knowledge and science competing rationalities?
• In spite of their differences, is the cooperation between these rationales a viable alternative?
• Are there rational justifications for the human to be separated from their environment and for biodiversity to be separated from human cultures?

According to organizers, cooperative dialogue between the two sides find support in the theoretical framework of the model of interaction between science and values ​​which is developed by the research group [read the interview with Hugh Lacey on this model]: "The arguments of the model in favor of strategic pluralism point to the need of a research based on methodological complementarity and the possibility of adopting unconventional alternative practices for biodiversity conservation."

Three central issues will be addressed by the two debates of the event:

• The imagery documentary record and field survey: from image to translation of realities
• Dialogue between science and traditional knowledge: from the model of interaction to methodological pluralism
• Communication and polarization between scientific and popular narratives in biodiversity conservation

PROGRAMME

April 9 from 9.30 am to 12.30 pm

Exhibitors: Antonio Carlos Diegues (NUPAUB-USP) and Sylvia Caiuby Novaes (FFLCH-USP)

Discussant: Stelio Marras (IEB-USP)

Mediator: Ana Tereza Reis da Silva (FE-UNB and IEA-USP)

April 10 from 9.30 am to 12.30 pm

Exhibitors: Mauro William Barbosa de Almeida (IFCH-Unicamp) and Ana Tereza Reis da Silva (FE-UNB and IEA-USP)

Discussant / mediator: Stelio Marras (IEB-USP)

Among the issues to be addressed at the event there are:

• How does the individual live in the context of modernity? What is their place in public space and in politics?
• What aspirations, hopes and frustrations does modern life raise?
• How do individuals negotiate social pressures?
• What new forms of domination does the contemporary Western culture generate?

The exhibitor will be Danilo Martuccelli, a professor at the Faculté des Sciences Humaines e Sociales of the Université Paris Descartes, and member of the Centre de Recherche sur le Liens Sociaux (CERLIS) at the same institution. The debaters will be Maria Alice Rezende de Carvalho, a professor at the department of social sciences of the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), and Vera da Silva Telles, a professor at USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH). Moderation will be in charge of sociologist Bernardo Sorj, visiting professor at the IEA-USP and coordinator of the cycle of seminars.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

CYCLE

The cycle “In Search of Lost Meaning: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Science and Transcendence”, coordinated by Sorj, is planned to have four meetings. The goal is to address the changes caused by the decline of the great political ideologies and to discuss the production of meaning in this new sociocultural context.

According to Sorj, the everyday is invaded by the immediate concerns of success, status and consumption, by media that convey a flood of information that deplete themselves and social ties transferred to social networks, where quantity replaces density.

"We live in a world where technology permeates every angle of our lives, but we do not understand its knowledge bases. Communication is ubiquitous, but its content is shallow. The sense of time evaporates along the immediacy of the present and the insecurity of the future. The pursuit of individual happiness has evacuated of collective life and handed into the hands of therapists and drugs.", says the sociologist.

Focusing on this panorama of transformations, the cycle of events addresses some key issues:

• What is the role of university and scientific knowledge in this new world?
• Is there a new meeting point between natural and human sciences?
• Is there space for a dialogue between scientific knowledge producers and other areas that reflect on human condition?
• How can local and global interact and produce new cultural syntheses?

STEPS OF A BORORO FUNERAL

Shallow grave in the village's center, where the body gets watered daily to have its decomposition process accelerated

Exhumation of the bones for the most important phase of the funeral

José Carlos Kuguri, the last master of chants of the Bororo village Meruri, died on June 20 at the age of about 70 years, as a result of pneumonia. Since then, his body has been wrapped in mats and buried in a shallow grave in the village’s center, which is in the south of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. The grave is daily watered to accelerate the decomposition of the body.

Kuguri is having a Bororo funeral, the most important ritual of this ethnicity and considered one of the world's most elaborate funerals. The most important part will take place in October, when the skull and other bones of Kaguri will be removed from the grave, cleaned, painted with annatto and adorned with feathers, becoming a mythical being (a macaw) to carry his spirit, which can thus be purified before moving to the village of the dead.

"The ritual is connected with the Bororo philosophy, according to which the master of chants plays a central role throughout the process," says anthropologist Massimo Canevacci, visiting professor at the IEA-USP who studies the Bororo culture since 1995, having his fieldwork in the villages Meruri and Garças.

The anthropologist explains that "the master sings in sacred rhythms and melodies" and has the memory of all the chants that should be sung at different times of the ritual. With the chants, he establishes a relationship between the visible and invisible worlds, between the living and the dead: "All the 'dead' return to the Bororo funeral and in that sense no one is totally dead."

"The completion of this ritual is crucial to the Bororo, as it allows them to play their political role in the world through their practice of autonomous self-representation. Accordingly, the Bororo funeral is part and parcel of contemporary human heritage, so important for all other human beings of any part of the world."

In support of the ritual, Canevacci has started a crowdfunding campaign on the internet to raise US$ 2,500.00. According to him, the funds are needed for hosting other masters of chants and for the participation of representatives of several other Bororo villages, which will have the responsibility to appoint a successor to José Carlos Kuguri.

Those who wish to contribute to the crowdfunding must do so by September 15. More information on www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-master-of-songs-funeral-in-the-bororo-culture.

Photos: Massimo Canevacci

Historian Nicholas Sevcenko, a full professor at Harvard University and former professor at USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH), died at the age of 61 last Wednesday, August 13, as a result of a stroke.

Sevcenko also worked at the IEA-USP in the early 90s, when he joined the Study Group on Cultural History, having delivered the conferences and participated in various seminars.

At Harvard, Sevcenko has taught History and Culture of Latin America and Brazil. Throughout his career, he stood out by studies on Brazilian Culture, Literature, Art and the development of the country's major cities.

Sevcenko graduated in History from FFLCH-USP, where he also earned a Ph.D. (1981). From 1986 to 1990 he held a post-doctoral research in Cultural History at the University of London, where he had as fellow historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012). He became a full professor at USP in 1992.

Besides teaching at USP and Harvard, Sevcenko was also a professor at PUC-SP and UNICAMP, and columnist of the newspaper "Folha de São Paulo".

His major works are "A Revolta da Vacina" ("The Vaccine Rebellion") (1984), "Literatura como Missão" ("Literature as a Mission") (1985), "Orfeu Estático na Metrópole"("Static Orpheus in the Metropolis") (1992) and "A Corrida para o Século XXI" ("The Race for the 21st Century") (2001).

Photos (from the top): Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard University; Mauro Bellesa/IEA-USP

Psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Claudio Cohen, a professor at USP's Faculty of Medicine, will be the exhibitor

How will new genetic technologies affect the production of meaning in the lives of human beings? If humanity became a civilization of cyborgs (humans with bio-mechatronic components), how would that affect the human condition? What is the role of the university in thinking about these issues and in establishing (or not) limits to the transformations in the human being?

These issues will be discussed at the seminar The Human Being and Technique, on October 8, at 3 pm, in IEA-USP's Event Room. It will be the fourth meeting of the cycle In Search of Lost Meaning. The speaker will be psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Claudio Cohen, a professor at USP's Faculty of Medicine, who is an expert in bioethics and clinical bioethics.

The debaters will be economist Gilson Schwartz, a professor of the Department of Film, Radio and Television at USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA), and political scientist Maya Mitre, a researcher at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and a specialist in political theory, and social studies of science and technology. Moderation will be in charge of political scientist Bernardo Sorj, a visiting professor at the IEA-USP and coordinator of the cycle.

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

CYCLE

In Search of Lost Meaning: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Science and Transcendence, coordinated by Sorj, has planned four meetings. The goal is to address the changes caused by the decline of the great political ideologies and to discuss the production of meaning in this new sociocultural context.

According to Sorj, the political ideologies of modernity - as the Enlightenment liberalism, fascism, communism and nationalism – have maintained from religious monotheism the notion that values ​​can be organized around universal principles and that there is a single truth. With the decline of the "secular religions" a world of "polytheism of values ​, which transfers to the individual the right and responsibility to choose between often conflicting and mutually exclusionary beliefs and values" has arisen.

This polytheism of values ​​is the main feature of today in the opinion of Sorj, for whom "the challenge of democratic societies is to assume this position, completing the process of secularization that began in the Renaissance."

Photo: Marcos Santos/USP Imagens

Cultural policies constitute a development component of any society. In the current context of Latin America, "where the State can no longer what it could," the central question turns to be "which State and which public institutions do we want and do we need, and how to build a modern, integrative cultural policy not to be 'State-centric' ".

This is the opinion of Gerardo Caetano, from the Universidad de La Republica, Uruguay, who will be the speaker of the seminar Las Políticas Culturales como Variable Indispensable del Desarrollo [The Cultural Policies as Indispensable Variables of Development], to take place on September 22, at 2 pm, in the IEA events room. The event is organized by the IEA's research group Fórum Permanente: Cultural System Between Public and Private.

The event will feature three professors of the USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA): José Teixeira Coelho Netto, Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira and Martin Grossmann (director of the IEA and coordinator of the research group).

Citizenship

For the beneficiaries of the programs for emergency and social assistance in Latin American countries to increasingly become the subjects and not the objects of public action, social policies should be drawn centered in the focus of citizenship and in the fostering of an independent organization of the non-organized, according to Caetano.

(Read the reference text in Spanish)

He identifies two risks in this process in the case of culture: to believe that we can make cultural policies without politics and to demagogically choose a populist vision with a simplistic identification, sometimes in a monopolistic way, of popular culture with culture.

Caetano emphasizes that one can not lose sight of the fact that today there is an informal supranationality and transnational public spaces, and that it is impossible to speak of cultural policies without discussing the issue of their economic supports.

Requirements

The professor identifies four aspects to be considered for the construction of Latin cultural policies that are a genuine support for Latin American development:

• the need for many accurate diagnoses in the cultural sphere (in contrast to the view that the region's societies are overdiagnosed and missing proposals);
• the fact that culture is by definition cumulative and that there is no sense in wanting to start over from scratch when drafting public policies;
• to create cultural policies that are active and reformative, but without becoming the populist politics, which does not choose, does not select;
• to put aside the parochial perspectives and choose flexibility and emphasis on issues of knowledge, innovation and professionalisation of cultural management, avoiding the mere copying of imported models.

Image: "Le Muse Inquietanti" (1918), by Giorgio De Chirico

The School of Communications and Arts (ECA), with support from the IEA, will hold on September 23, at 2 pm, a meeting on Expanding the Being’s Sphere of Presence: Reflections on the Work of Teixeira Coelho, which will precede the ceremony to bestow the title of Professor Emeritus to José Teixeira Coelho Netto, professor at ECA’s Department of Library Studies and Documentation, “for his significant work and intellectual career.”

The event will be held in the Auditorium of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), in USP’s Butantã campus. The ceremony (open only to guests) will take place at 6:30 pm in the same venue.

According to the organizers, the choice of guests “sought to combine intellectual rigor and affection in the broadest sense: people who affected and were affected by meetings, discussions, debates, his vast work, his restless and free thinking.” See program below.

Teixeira Coelho specializes in Cultural Policy. He has a Ph.D. in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature from USP’s School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and completed a post-doctoral program at the University of Maryland (United States). He began his teaching career at ECA-USP in 1973, becoming a full professor in 1989, and has also taught at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Mackenzie Presbyterian University.

Currently, Teixeira Coelho is curator of the Curitiba Biennial, a contributor to the UNESCO Chair of Cultural Policy at the University of Girona (Spain), and consultant to the Cultural Policy Observatory of the Itaú Cultural Institute, where he coordinates the Books of the Observatory collection. He was curator-coordinator of the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP), director of the MAC-USP museum and curator of several exhibitions in both institutions. He has written several books on culture and art, as well as works of fiction. His book História natural da ditatura [Natural history of dictatorship], published in 2006, won the Portugal Telecom award in 2007.

Program

Part 1: Expanding the Being’s Sphere of Presence: Reflections on the Work of Teixeira Coelho

Coordinator: Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira (ECA-USP)

2:30 pm          Opening: Luiz Milanesi (ECA-USP)

2:50 pm          Alfons Martinell (University of Girona, Spain)

3:10 pm          Gerardo Caetano (Universidad de La Republica, Uruguay)

3:30 pm          Intervention by José Teixeira Coelho Netto (ECA-USP)

3:50 pm          Break

4:20 pm          Celso Favaretto (School of Education and FFLCH-USP)

4:40 pm          Regina Silveira (ECA-USP)

5:00 pm         Manuel da Costa Pinto (journalist and literary critic)

5:20 pm         Intervention by José Teixeira Coelho Netto (ECA-USP)

5:40 pm         Conclusion: Martin Grossmann (IEA and ECA-USP)

6:00 pm         Break

Part 2: Solemn Session of the Faculty of ECA-USP – Title-Bestowing Ceremony

18:30 pm        Musical presentation

Opening

Opening of the work: Margarida Krohling Kunsch (ECA-USP director)

Salutation: Maria Helena Pires Martins (ECA-USP)

Academic Assistance

Statement by José Teixeira Coelho Netto (ECA-USP)

Statement by Margardia Krohling Kunsch (ECA-USP director)

End of Solemn Session

Photo: Cecília Bastos/Agência USP

“The goal is to bring to public notice the results of the research group, interventions and the studies on the contact between people arising from the displacement of cultural groups,” says organizer Sylvia Dantas, coordinator of the research group and a professor at Unifesp.

Interdisciplinary and inter-institutional in nature, the research group’s objective is to study intercultural contact, using theoretical approaches and methodologies specific to its fields of inquiry, according to Dantas.

“The event will seek to bring the complexity of the issue of displaced people and the challenges faced by societies that receive these migrant groups,” she says.

The symposium is organized into three roundtables. At the opening conference, Jeffrey Lesser, visiting professor at the IEA and member of the Intercultural Dialogues Research Group, will talk about “The Invention of Brazilianity: National Identity, Ethnicity and Immigration Policy.”

“Territories and Beliefs” are the themes of the first panel discussion, with lectures on umbanda and shamanism, and the presence of foreigners in São Paulo. In the next roundtable, the discussion will relate migration and mental health. In the afternoon, experts will analyze the experiences of linguistic receptivity.

The speakers will found their analyses on the multidisciplinary bases of History, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Language Teaching, according to professor Dantas.

The director of the IEA and coordinator of the Institute's research group Fórum Permanente: Cultural System Between Public and Private, Martin Grossmann will be one of the lecturers of the seminar Museums, Museumgoers, Media – A Visionary Project, organized by the Humboldt-Forum in Berlin from December 3 to 5. "The Stranger's Guide to the Museum Galaxy" is the name of his conference, to be given on Friday, the 4th.

On December 10, Grossmann will deliver a more detailed presentation on the same theme at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Advanced Studies, where he will stay as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow Professor during this month and in June 2016.

With a title inspired by the bestseller "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams and Marshall McLuhan’s “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man,” the speech intends to "offer a storyboard for a critical guide to attendees of museums in the contemporary society." In the future, the information may join a book or digital guide.

According to Grossmann, the paradigm of 20th century art museum, the "white cube" that has the MoMA as an exponent, has been deconstructed in recent decades. "Other types of museums are strengthening their differences and gaining global recognition. Today we are able to experience different types of 'mise-en-scène' in buildings aimed at art and culture," he says.

He highlights the growth of what he calls "paradoxical museum". A result of the "society of the spectacle", defined by Guy Debord, the phenomenon has as its backdrop the "spectacular" museums such as the Beoubourg in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and the Tate Modern in London, besides the constant updating of the MoMA. Highlighted in this scenario is now the Humboldt-Forum, which will open to the public in 2019.

The 2012-2016 Direction of the IEA strove to lead the University of São Paulo to a new and deeper involvement with culture and the arts. The main result of this endeavor has been the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science, offered in 2015 but officially launched in 2016.

To give due weight and importance to this initiative, the first person to hold the chair is diplomat and essayist Sérgio Paulo Rouanet, former National Secretary of Culture and author of the cultural incentive law that bears his name.

A project of the IEA in partnership with Itaú Cultural Institute, the Olavo Setubal Chair will be a space to discuss and promote activities related to the world of arts, with special focus on cultural management. Its goal is to foster interdisciplinary reflections on academic, artistic, cultural and social issues of regional and global scope.

The official launch took place on February 17 at a meeting in the President's Office building, with the participation of the first holder of the Chair, Sérgio Paulo Rouanet, the director of the Itaú Cultural Institute, Eduardo Saron Nunes, the President of USP, Marco Antonio Zago, Vice-President Vahan Agopyan, the Director of the IEA, Martin Grossmann, and other representatives of the University and the cultural institution.

President Marco Antonio Zago (left) hosting diplomat Sérgio Paulo Rouanet for the official launch of the Chair

"We are honored to have Sérgio Paulo Rouanet inaugurating the Olavo Setubal Chair. The support of Itaú represents the strengthening of the University's relations with the productive sector, which is very important by allowing the USP to benefit from the presence of personalities as the ambassador," said Zago.

After the meeting, part of the group visited the Itaú Cultural. According to Marcos Cuzziol, manager of the Innovation Center / Observatory of the institution, the partnership recognizes the special attention of Itaú Cultural towards management and formation of a cultural policy, integrating the 10 years of the Itaú Cultural Observatory, to be celebrated this year.

The Itaú Cultural Observatory was created in 2006 with a focus on management, economics and cultural policies. Since then, it promotes studies and discussion of these issues, stimulating reflection on culture in its various aspects and analyzing national indicators. Its performance and range are extended with seminars, meetings and lectures; an editorial line of books and the journal Revista Observatório, available for free on the web; and the promotion of research on the cultural field. In addition, since 2009, it holds a free course on cultural management in partnership with the UNESCO Chair on Cultural Policies, with the cooperation of the University of Girona and the support of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI). The course has one year of duration and takes place in classrooms and through virtual classes.

The chair

With a minimum duration of five years, the chair comprises two programs: Global Networks of Young Researchers, and Leaders in Art, Culture and Science, with a forecast joint endowment of R$ 1.5 million, sponsored by the Itaú Cultural Institute. Each program (described below) will be allocated R$ 150,000 annually.

Even before the official inauguration of the Chair, part of its activities had already begun. The Intercontinental Academia, the São Paulo stage of which was launched in April 2015, is part of the Global Network of Young Researchers program, aimed at developing new leaders. The programs seek to encourage and promote the interdisciplinary research of young (under 40) scholars.

The Leaders in Art, Culture and Science program follows the template adopted by USP’s José Bonifácio Chair, inaugurated in 2013. Each year, the chair is held by an exponent from the world of art, culture, politics, society, economics or academia – Rouanet being the first among them. In addition to the chairperson, professors, researchers and national and international personalities participate in the activities, with special attention given to public policies for culture and the arts.

"I hope to follow the example of Nélida Piñon, my colleague at the Brazilian Academy of Letters and holder of the José Bonifacio Chair [in 2015], and to help developing this new chair by placing a stone in this new building," said Rouanet.

The Olavo Setubal Chair extends the central role of the IEA in creating and managing professorships within the University. Over the course of its almost 30 years, the Institute lays claim to 11 chairs (eight elapsed and two active).

Olavo Setubal, a culture supportive

Olavo Setúbal

A renowned businessman, mayor of São Paulo (1975-1979) and foreign minister (1985-1986), Olavo Setubal left his mark on Brazilian culture by creating an important collection of more than 3,600 works of art. He conceived and founded the Itaú Cultural Institute in 1987. Among his many contributions to culture are the conception and construction of the São Paulo Cultural Center and of the Itaú Cultural Encyclopedia of Visual Arts, a computerized database of Brazilian art, with scanned reproductions of works dating from the 19^th century French mission during the Empire.

Sérgio Paulo Rouanet

A national secretary of culture (1991-1992) and career diplomat, Rouanet was Brazil’s ambassador to Denmark and to the Czech Republic. He is the eighth holder of Chair 13 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, elected on April 23, 1992. He was a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Sociology at the University of Brasilia (UnB), professor of the Rio Branco Institute and visiting professor at the University of Oxford, UK.

He graduated in Social and Legal Sciences from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, earning postgraduate degrees in Economics from George Washington University, in Political Sciences from Georgetown University and in Philosophy from the New York School for Social Research. He also holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of São Paulo.

With information from the USP's press office

Photo: Erika Yamamoto

Yoshiyuki Suto, from the Nagoya University.

The Hellenistic world, regarded as the earliest age of globalization in human history, was discussed at the conference Articulating Time in the Hellenistic World, given by Yoshiyuki Suto, a professor of Ancient History and academic staff of the Center for the Cultural Heritage and Texts (CHT) at the Nagoya University..

The emergence of a multicultural society has imposed the need to synchronize calendars and to standardize documentary records and the dating of historical events. "The setting of time was closely related to the sense of social stability," said Suto during the Humanities / Social Sciences Workshop of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA), on March 10.

"We have agreed on the use of units such as hours, minutes, seconds and days to express time, but we do not think about the origin of these markers."

From the observation of the stars, the Egyptians have been the first to count annual periods and also the pioneers in creating 12 subdivisions of time based on seasons. Greek historian and geographer Herodotus wrote on this ability of the so-called "time masters" in 3 BC. "Their calculations are more accurate than those of the Greeks, who added an intercalary month every two years so that the seasons could coincide. The Egyptians counted 30 days for each of the 12 months, adding five days to the total of each year and thus the full circle of the seasons would coincide with the calendar," Herodotus wrote.

Suto has been specializing in the history of Egypt under the Ptolemaic dinasty. "It is interesting to observe not only the advanced knowledge of the Egyptians, but also the unique feature of that moment. During Hellenism there has been the first era of globalization in human history. The creation of huge empires and the division into large kingdoms features a totally different time in comparison to the previous one," he said.

This period was marked by the expeditions of Alexander the Great to Asia, by the first invasion of Rome in Eastern Greece and by the spread of the Greek language. Public announcements and historical events often needed to be recorded in more than one type of spelling or language, and considering the calendars adopted by different peoples, Suto said. Those were common public documents referencing reigns, bishoprics and other historical facts, accordingly to Sumerian, Egyptian or Greek calendars, to avoid mistakes about the date or the fact that they wanted to portray.

Thus, the time synchronization was necessary. In order to date documents, some important reference points have been used, such as the Trojan War, the Flood of Deucalion (the Greek Noah) or the Return of the Heracleidae. A more explicit time series was created from the Olympic Games in Athens. "The new benchmark was based on the list of Olympic winners," Suto said.

To show how time synchronization evolved between the different peoples of ancient history, Suto introduced two basic concepts related to time in history. The first concept compares progressive time and recurring time, where progressive time is connected to a linear chain of events between past, present and future, and recurring time is caracterized by a repeated cycle of events from period to period, such as celebrations. The second concept compares natural time and human time, where natural time is related to astronomical phenomena and nature, and human time is linked to cultural articulations and a personal interpretation of natural time.

Even in ancient societies, natural time did coincide with celebrations and human needs as harvesting and planting, for example. But it was during the Hellenistic period that the definition of beginning and end of basic chronological units occurred, as well as the synchronization of various human times and ways to denote human time in daily life, he said.

There was no way to articulate a unit of time that had more than one year. Besides, there were difficulties to distinguish one year from another in a chronologically progressive time. Initially, the way that was found to do this was giving the name of a magistrate or an elected priest to a year. "It has certainly avoided a lot of trouble, but it was not practical because these references did not give a sense of relative sequence in relation to the facts," Suto said.

The way to mark time progressed in the Hellenistic kingdoms, especially in the Ptolemaic Egypt, the most successful and enduring of them. An alternative system became better known: to count the year from the throne succession of each king. For example, the year of the coronation of Ptolemy I (305-4 BC) was called the Year I of Ptolemy of Egypt.

The establishment of the concept of regular years has not only contributed to the identification of a given year, but also of longer periods. "It allowed to articulate progressive time with the respective period of each king's domain," he said.

This was demonstrated in a 300-name-long king list graphed over a papyrus. The document, entitled Turin Royal Canon, dates from the time of Ramses II and brings the exact duration of each reign. It is unknown why it is the only list of kings of the Pharaonic period.

Ptolemy II, co-regent of his father, Ptolemy I Soter, introduced changes in the calendar. He tried to extend the year of his reign, considering the period during which he was co-regent. "The reason for this is unknown but it is believed that it has been an attempt to extend his authority over the legislators of other kingdoms," Suto said.

After all, the regular year system starting from the year in which a new king succeeded the former one resulted in a convenient way to determine the beginning and the end of each period, Suto said. Thus, the striking feature of the Hellenistic phase was not only the structural and cultural integration of the kingdom. There was also the important time synchronization that in previous periods was locally separated in different parts of the kingdom.

Kirill Thompson addresses the perception of time in consciousness.

Daoism, Zen, Time Awareness, and the Reality of Time was the title of the lecture given by Kirill O. Thompson, from the National Taiwan University (NTU), during the Humanities / Social Sciences Workshop of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA), on March 10.

An expert on neo-Confucian philosophy and Chinese philosophy, Thompson has examined the perception of time in the human consciousness according to Eastern traditions such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and compared this notion to the Western philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

Taoism and Zen Buddhism are religious philosophical traditions of East Asia intended to reorient the common personal experience to a broader life experience. The consciousness of time is a part of that shift, said Thompson.

For Kant, time is not simply inserted in the experience: time is the very condition of the experience, the pure form of inner intuition. Time summarizes the flow or the pulse of consciousness and thus the mind synchronizes and applies this time to the world's events flow, said Thompson, who is a professor at the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department, and serves as Associate Dean for Humanities at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (IHS) of the NTU.

The German philosopher also conceptualizes the perception of objects as a basic experience that requires "time" to allow the mind to refer to memory and identify the object. Neurologically, this happens in a "self-centered" way because it is molded by mental filters. It is a sensory response that requires "time" to be filtered by personal experience, said Thompson.

The recognition or perception of objects or people is an experiential phenomenon reasoned by the Noumenon, which for Kant is inaccessible. The Noumenon (from the German Ding an sich, meaning "the thing itself") is the sphere of higher reality within the philosophic mind. It can also be understood as the essence of something or that what makes something what it is. The Noumenon exists in itself regardless of the conditions of the common experience phenomena, including time and space. In neurological terms the Noumenon is independent of mental filters of experience, said the professor.

Thus, the common experience is never a raw sensation; it is always conditioned by the forms of intuition and categories of understanding. The object, as a phenomenon, is seen in the context of subjective needs, desires, dislikes, goals or in addition to its own character and relationships.

According to the professor, the social sciences tend to value a self-centered point of view, referring rational interests as the great guide of ideal personal conduct. On the other hand, the Taoist response to existence is the negation of the ego and the dissolution of the mind filters.

Thus, the oldest Taoist text, the Laozi, challenges and refutes the independence and the ultimacy of objects, showing its origin from the non-being (invisible, formless) and mutual codependency. "But how could it be possible to experience that?," asked Thompson.

First, he said, we should note that the common egocentric experience is based on ego as a unified system or a set that brings together the expertise and its categories, and forms of intuition which filter and shape the experience. In this case, linear time is a condition for the exercise of memory, recalling past events and planing the sequence of future events.

In Taoism, the appropriation of time requires a "step back" in the common experience of being, and of its forms and categories of understanding. This involves a change of perspective, a general reorientation so that Laozi and Zen Buddhism can convey their message. The key is to relax and focus the mind through meditation.

One can directly see things as co-emerging and interdependent, according to Thompson. If this mindset - meditation - is successful, the result will be a dissolution of the intuition model, of the understanding categories, of the mind filters simultaneously including the dissolution of the ego, and of course of linear time. Meditation opens the path to be holistic and time gets suspended, said Thompson.

Thompson cited American neurologist James H. Austin, who engaged in holistic trial through Zen Buddhism. Author of Zen and the Brain, Austin seeks to relate the neural activity of the human brain and the practice of meditation. His book was awarded the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize in 1998.

"Austin underwent Zen Buddhist trial and tracked its impact on the neural processes during meditation. He confirmed that the internal neural metronome turns off in relation to clock time and thus time ceases. Such dissolution of the filters that connect the experience and divide subject and object open the path for a direct and holistic orientation," he said.

The sense of achronia (cessation of time, eternity) accompanies the deep kenshi and the satori experience when a person opens into the void. Thompson defines achronia as the absence of any sense of time during meditative detachment. It is not a sense of timelessness or loss of time.

The horizon of consciousness opens beyond all notions of previous limits. There are neither past nor present. This lack of time enters the nonverbal experience as eternity. Neurologically, this kind of orientation contrasts with the egocentric pattern of the Western experience outlined above.

In the allocentric experience - which has interests and considerations centered on the other, contrary to the egocentric orientation - the being can grasp objects as they really are. Instead of a subjective perception filtered by wants and needs, a person acquires an objective perception to themselves and to others.

When consciousness is freed from rigid categories and mental filters, the path will be open to more flexibility and fluidity in thought and action, which enhances creativity in the arts, in problem solving, in life management and in the field of ideas.

Ultimately, the Zen notion about the nature of Buddha in regard to "empty" and "enlightenment" complements Kant's Noumenon (Ding an sich), said Thompson. The philosopher's ideas are static and logically chained, and posit the object as it is, ie, prior to the intuition of taxes, categories and mental filters that shape the common experience.

In theory, the concept of the Noumenon (Ding an sich) encourages us to see through the phenomena as they primarily appear.

Linear time as pure form of inner intuition is a common experience condition. Given this form of intuition, the internal neural metronome follows the pulse and the flow of the experience from within, which also keeps us in sync with the flow of events in the world.

In contrast, at the deepest level of allocentric experience, when the ego is dissolved and the internal neural metronome stops, time is suspended. Therefore, time such as distance is related to the forms or time measuring systems, said Thompson.

Political scientist, philosopher and diplomat Sérgio Paulo Rouanet, former National Secretary of Culture and author of the cultural incentive law that bears his name, will give the inaugural conference of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science, of which he is the first holder.

Rouanet will address the influence of modernity in the economic, political and cultural contexts through the ideas of sociologists Max Weber and Manuel Castells, and philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Modernity and its Ambivalences will take place on May 17, at 10 am, in the former University Board Room.

The debaters will be jurist Celso Lafer, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; philosopher Renato Janine Ribeiro, former Minister of Education and coordinator of the IEA's Research Group The Future Inquires Us; and sociologist Barbara Freitag, professor emeritus from the University of Brasília (UnB). The opening of the seminar will be attended by the president of USP, Marco Antonio Zago, by the director of the IEA, Paulo Saldiva, and by Eduardo Saron, director at the Itaú Cultural Institute.

A project of the IEA in partnership with the Itaú Cultural Institute, the Olavo Setubal Chair will be a space to discuss and promote activities related to the world of arts, with special focus on cultural management. Its goal is to foster interdisciplinary reflections on academic, artistic, cultural and social issues of regional and global scope.

The concept of modernity

According to Rouanet there are still doubts about the concept of modernity even though it is being discussed more than ever before. One of the definitions has been presented by sociologist Anthony Giddens: "Modernity refers to the ways of life and the social organization that emerged in Europe from the 18th century, and subsequently became global in their influence."

However, Rouanet believes that "if we want to give a concrete content to this mature chronological frame, we should go back to the classical analyzes of Max Weber," for whom modernity is the product of cumulative rationalization processes that occurred:

• economically – free mobility of production factors, wage labor, rational techniques of accounting and management, and continual incorporation of science and technology to the production process;
• politically – replacement of the decentralized feudal state by the centralized national state;
• culturally – secularization of traditional worldviews (Entzauberung) and their internal division into value spheres (Wertsphären): science, morality, law and art.
  

Rouanet seeks to integrate these Weberian categories in the context of Habermas's theory of communicative action. As a case study, he proposes the analysis of more abstract questions about books and their future prospects in the face of new technologies of information and communication, taking advantage of Castells's approach.

Photo: Cecília Bastos/USP

Modernity and its Ambivalences was the opening conference of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science, a project of the IEA in partnership with the Itaú Cultural Institute.

Political scientist, philosopher and diplomat Sergio Paulo Rouanet addressed the influence of modernity in the economic, political and cultural contexts through the ideas of sociologists Max Weber and Manuel Castells, and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, on May 17. He said that modernity was institutionalized in two vectors that incorporate aspects of each other: the functional one and the emancipatory one.

The notion that modernization is mainly effective can be found in the ideas of Weber, Rouanet said. "This concept is what prevails in the specialized literature, and in economic and social development policies. He believes that it is a functional concept of modernity with the idea that in a modern society institutions work better than in an archaic one, which is identified by globalization.

The emancipatory vector, in turn, only considers a society modern if its subsystems (economy, politics and culture) also provide the maximum autonomy possible for individuals, Rouanet said.

In this view, modernity would mean the following: in the economic context, the individual works to have access to goods and services, necessary for their well-being; in the political context, there is ability to put citizenship into practice; and in the cultural context, there is the free use of reason, "an institutional context that guarantees the right to cultural production and the right of access to culture for everyone."

The ceremony has highlighted the importance of the partnership between universities and the private sector in support of culture From left to right: Maria Alice Setubal, Paulo Saldiva, Marcelo de Andrade Romero and Eduardo Saron The launch of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science was held at the USP's School of Medicine in the presence of the provost for Culture and University Extension, Marcelo de Andrade Romero, the director of the IEA, Paulo Saldiva, the director of Itaú Cultural, Eduardo Saron, and sociologist and educator Maria Alice Setubal, daughter of Olavo Setubal (1993-2008). Rouanet was presented by his colleague at the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL), Alfredo Bosi, a professor emeritus from the USP's Faculy of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and an honorary professor of the IEA. The conference had the following commentators: Celso Lafer, former president of the São Paulo Research Foundation, also a member of the ABL and professor emeritus from the USP's Faculty of Law; Renato Janine Ribeiro, former Minister of Education and a professor at FFLCH; and Barbara Freitag, a professor emeritus from the University of Brasília. The event was closed by Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA and scientific coordinator of the chair. All of them have stressed the importance of the chair being the result of a partnership between a public university and a private institution for the sake of art and culture. They have also highlighted the peculiar profile of Setubal as an entrepreneur who has always stood out in supporting culture. In 1975, when he was the mayor of São Paulo, he defined the construction of a large public library, which later became the São Paulo Cultural Center. He created the Itaú Cultural in 1987. As for the choice of Rouanet being the first chair holder, Saron and Grossmann said that his name was naturally mentioned when they sought to identify an intellectual with a decisive role in the development and deployment of culture supportive policies. Rouanet was the National Secretary of Culture in 1991-92, being the author of the cultural incentive law that bears his name. From left to right: Celso Lafer, Renato Janine Ribeiro, Barbara Freitag and Martin Grossmann.

Photos: Leonor Calasans/IEA-USP

In addition to having a programme dedicated to the natural sciences, the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia in Nagoya also had a workshop on arts, on March 15. The exhibitors were two members of the Tokyo University of the Arts: Akitoshi Edagawa, an expert in cultural economics expert, and professor of global art studies and curatorial practices, and Satoru Kitago, sculptor and director of research.

In his presentation, Edagawa commented on the relations of the artistic act with the transcendence of time, the communicative role of art, and the difference between art and science.

He made a distinction - in relation to time - between the performing arts (performances, happenings, and music, dance and theater presentations) and those called fine arts (painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, photography, etc.).

To Edagawa, the performing arts can be called time arts once that the artist and the audience are in direct contact during the artistic act, while in the fine arts the public has contact with the artwork after its implementation.

But even music - considered under the aspect of composition - transcends time thanks to musical notation, although future executions can be distinguished from the original composer's intentions because "many ideas are incorporated by interpreters and passed on to subsequent generations", according to the researcher.

Izanagi and Izanami (2012), by Satoru Kitago

He also stressed that one should consider the relative transcendence of time in aspects of the performing arts made possible by the technological capabilities of image and audio recording.

Cultural differences

The transcendence of time manifests itself differently in the artistic traditions of East and West. In the West, works and artistic procedures are transmitted in time through text, notations and other resources, which is not common in the East, according to Edagawa, citing the set of traditional Japanese arts called gei-do, where there are no records and new practitioners learn to perform from those who master them.

A work of art incorporates aspects of the time when it was produced, but it is understood and appreciated in the future from a new sensibility, said Edagawa. This is the reason to the fact that sometimes a past work of art is considered better than one of the present, which does not happen in science, "because it is believed that it qualitatively progresses with time".

He commented that English poet and philosopher William Hazlitt (1778-1830), when addressing this difference two hundred years ago, said that scientific studies evolve while art does not. Edagawa considers, however, that art can become more sophisticated over time through the incorporation of scientific and technological resources.

Melencolia 1, by Albrecht Dürer

Incorporation of time

To Kitago, each work of art tells a story through spatial and temporal situations, thus expressing its attachment to past, present and future. "Moreover, when presented to the public in different places and times, it gives rise to new stories drawn from the experiences of the observers."

He illustrated his presentation with images of his own work as well as of German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), and Spanish painter and sculptor Antonio López.

Kitago commented on Dürer's Melencolia 1: "We can see a comet in the sky, a geometric shape, and a character that handles a compass with a melancholic expression. Interestingly, recent scientific articles report the presence of amino acids in comets. Amino acids are components in the origin of life and their crystallographic form is quite similar to the one observed in the picture. Perhaps the character was thinking about the future of humanity and life on Earth."

The sculptor related this interpretation with his concern to express "the question about where people came from and where they go" when producing sculptures with human forms.

Still on Dürer's piece, Kitago showed a picture of Cube (1934-35), one of the abstract sculptures of Giacometti: "It resembles a mask, a face and also the geometric shape present in the work by Dürer. I believe that Giacometti was interested in Melencolia 1."

When showing a photograph of another work by Giacometti, Femme Leoni (1947), Kitago said that he, as the Swiss artist, seeks to emphasize the space, the human figure and the passage of time in his sculptures.

Cube (1934-5) and Femme Leoni (1947), by Alberto Giacometti

As examples of explicit representation of the incorporation of time into works of art, Kitago cited López's works. The sculpture Hombre y mujer (1968-1994) represents a couple with young bodies and heads of aged people. The painting Gran Vía (1974-1981) shows the changes that occurred in a Madrid corner during the years it took to be painted. The painting La Cena (1971-1980) shows the changes in the face of a woman during the nine years in which the work was made.

Kitago said that the goal of having discussed the works of López and Giacometti in his presentation was to emphasize that the artwork has not only the economic side: "I believe that artists and researchers should not pursue only economic aspects. The main goal should be trying to express and pursue reality. What I tell my students is to create sculptures with a philosophy, so maybe in a hundred, two hundred years, people continue to receive their message."

Communication

Commenting on Kitago's exhibition, Edagawa said that "it is possible that the message of an artist is transmitted one hundred, two hundred years after their death, but society will have changed a lot and thus not always the real intentions of the artist will be understood."

He asked the opinion of Kitago on artworks done by teams in studios under the guidance of a master artist, as in the case of the works by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, by Raphael and Da Vinci in the Renaissance or those of when the Buddhist culture emerged in Japan.

Hombre y mujer (1968-94), Gran Vía (1974-81) and La Cena (1971-80), by Antonio López

Despite being a defender of an artist's personal and manual work, Kitago sees no problem in production teams if necessary: "The large works of the Buddhist culture necessarily had to be made that way."

At the time of the workshop a series of exhibitions took place in Japan, including Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Kitago said that an interesting activity in both exhibitions was to try to find out which works had been produced by the artists themselves and which were of members of their studios.

Edagawa commented that the insight to this requires a certain capacity of the public and asked Kitago how artists could contribute to this. The important thing, according to Kitago, is that familiarity with art begins in childhood. "I do not think art is difficult to understand, but you need to interact with it from an early age to acquire an artistic sense that provides more pleasure with the works"

Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA and member of the Intercontinental Academia's scientific committee, said that the works by López commented by Kitago reminded him of The Large Glass (1915-23), a work that Marcel Duchamp took a long time to produce, incorporating the passage of time in it.

The Large Glass (1915-23), by Marcel Duchamp

According to Grossmann, Duchamp has incorporated the viewer, including the non-specialist one, to the art system. "This is necessary in contemporary art. We need to think about the reception of art and how it affects one's sense." He wanted to know the opinion of Edagawa and Kitago on this issue in the Japanese context.

Kitago agreed with Grossmann on the change in the observer's role introduced by Duchamp and said that art has to stimulate the viewer to have new expectations. To Edagawa, the major issue in the artist-audience relationship is communication: "Although contemporary art is often ambiguous about what it wants to express, the artist must make an effort to communicate their thoughts and their philosophy. There must be the intention of trying to communicate."

Photos (from the top): IAR / Nagoya University; Satoru Kitago; Reproduction; Alberto Giacometti Foundation; Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti; Antonio López; Philadelphia Museum of Art.