Sesame is a center for research and advanced technology around a “third generation” synchrotron light source in construction in Allas, Jordan. It is supported by Unesco and a partnership between Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey, which have full control over its development, use and funding.

Eliezer Rabinovici, former director of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will present his views on the project and the increments that the proposal received in 2012 at the conference ‘Sesame: A Visit to a Parallel Universe’ on August 22, at 2 pm, in IEA’s Event Room.

The panelists will be professors Nathan Berkovits, of the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Unesp, Mahir Saleh Hussein, of the Institute of Physics of USP and researcher at the IEA, Arlene Clemesha, from the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), Guilherme Ary Plonski, of the Polytechnic School (EP) and the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accounting (FEA), both of USP, and board member at the IEA, and Bernardo Sorj, director of the Edelstein Center for Social Research and visiting professor at the IEA.

COOPERATION

The SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) will be the first major international research center in the region. It is a joint initiative of scientists and governments of the Middle East and is modeled on the Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Sesame will both:

• Foster scientific and technological excellence in the Middle East and neighbouring countries (and prevent or reverse the brain drain) by enabling world-class scientific research in subjects ranging from biology, archaeology and medical sciences through basic properties of materials science, physics, chemistry, and life sciences; and
• Build scientific and cultural bridges between diverse societies, and contribute to a culture of peace through international cooperation in science.

The event will be broadcast live from IEA's Event Room at www.iea.usp.br/aovivo.

Video of the event

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

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

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?

The formation of modern world is associated with the process of secularization, which owes a lot to the scientific and technological development of the last centuries. However, if on one hand rationality has led to a profound transformation of society, where freedom has replaced the dogmas and certainties previously provided by the immersion of culture and power in religious beliefs, on the other it has also led to a sense of relativity of values. The result seems to be a world where the meaning of life has become fragile and where individualism, utilitarianism and consumerism leave no room for seeking transcendence.

This analysis of nowadays is the starting point of the workshop “Science and the Polytheism of Values”, to be held by the IEA-USP on April 8, at 9.30 am. Among the topics to be discussed at the meeting there are the place of science and religion in this pluralistic universe, the challenges that pluralism of values put ​​in a globalized world and the position of Brazilian culture in this context. This will be the opening event of the cycle “In Search of Lost Meaning: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Science and Transcendence”.

The exhibitor will be sociologist Bernardo Sorj, a retired professor from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and currently a visiting professor at the IEA-USP. The panelists will be Alfredo Bosi, professor emeritus from USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and editor of IEA-USP’s journal  Estudos Avançados, and Enrique Larreta, director of the Institute of Cultural Pluralism (IPC) of the Universidade Cândido Mendes (UCM). Moderation will be in charge of Martin Grossmann, director of the IEA-USP.

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."

CYCLE

The cycle “In Search of Lost Meaning: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Science and Transcendence”, coordinated by Sorj, will 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 will address 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?

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

Roger Buergel, director of the Johann Jacobs Museum in Zurich and curator of the 12th Documenta in Kassel, will be at the IEA for the conference The Museum of Things in-Between. The speech will be broadcast live on the Institute's website.

On February 9, at 2.30 pm, he will address the need to give more visibility and space to things that are now in an in-between condition in the field of culture. In Buergel's opinion, one must get rid of the museological categories, and of the distinctions between art and non-art, promoting the appreciation of the uniqueness of objects on display. The researcher believes that the existence of categories in museums leads to a restricted human perception about things.

According to Martin Grossmann, coordinator of the Research Group Fórum Permanente: Cultural System Between Public and Private, which organizes the meeting, the museum format proposed by Buergel operates in a post-colonial (transcultural) mode, critical to a museum model that was developed in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but still very present today. "It is a museum that promotes a more horizontal relationship between cultures, languages and cosmologies, where the object - 'the thing' - can act 'in-between', whether in relation to museological or disciplinary categories, or in relation to different notions of space and time," he explains.

Grossmann recalls that the subject has already been explored in Brazil, mainly in the fields of cultural theory and criticism. Silviano Santiago's "The Space In-Between: Essays in Latin American Culture" (1971) and Roberto Schwartz's "Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture" (1977) are two examples of works that address possibilities of action out of the European modern tradition.

The meeting at the IEA will feature a debate with the participation of Lisette Lagnado, director of the School of Visual Arts Parque Lage; Carlos Roberto Brandão, director of USP's Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC); José Teixeira Coelho Netto, former director of MAC-USP and curator-general of MASP from 2006 to 2014; and the former director of the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, curator and culture-specialized journalist Marcelo Rezende. Moderation will be in charge of Grossmann.

In 2019 the Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture, and Science will have two holders who will address the visual arts and science, as well as the intersections between them.

The positions have been taken on by art critic, curator, and cultural manager Paulo Herkenhoff, and by biochemist Helena Nader, a professor at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and former president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC).

The inauguration took place on March 28 during a ceremony in the University Council Room. Social, educational and cultural activist Eliana Sousa Silva, the previous holder, will continue to be linked to the Chair while coordinating the ongoing project Democracy, Arts and Knowledge.

The coordinator of the chair and former director of the IEA, Martin Grossmann, emphasizes that the initiative, as a result of an agreement between the IEA and Itaú Cultural, has an open configuration, both thematic and organizational, hence the possibility of simultaneously exploring two areas of knowledge.

For him, the choice of Paulo Herkenhoff and Helena Nader is due to the role of "curators" that both play in their areas of activity. "Herkenhoff has important institutional participation in the field of the arts and Nader acts almost as a diplomat to the world of science, science politics, technology and innovation."

It will not be the first time that science will be next to art in an activity of the chair. In 2016, holder Sérgio Paulo Rouanet organized the seminar "Science and Its Borders."

At a preliminary meeting on March 8 to gather the IEA directors, the chair coordination, and the new members, Director Paulo Saldiva said that choosing Herkenhoff and Nader will allow a reflection on the false duality between the creative process and the scientific one. In reference to Jacob Bronowski's book "Science and Human Values," he affirmed that there are "extremely intuitive things when you do science and very accurate ones when you paint a picture."

Still in relation to the dialogue between art and science, Herkenhoff cited the concept of a "black hole" applied to ghettos by artist Cildo Meirelles: "The energy trapped in the ghetto ends up growing and self-feeding, an example of which is New York's Harlem in the 1920s."

Another aspect emphasized by Saldiva is the importance of the new holders' action so that the chair is a space of dissemination and clarification for art and science "at a time when both areas are under attack."

This is a crucial function in the current context of the country, according to Nader: "We must take advantage of this space to strengthen art, culture, and science." In that sense, she and Herkenhoff hope that their stay at the IEA will contribute to the development of scientific and artistic education.

Specifically referring to the role of art in this context, Herkenhoff sees it as a possibility of healing, of something that makes life possible: "As sculptor Louise Burgeois said, 'art is a guarantee of sanity.'"

Paulo Herkenhoff

In the 1970s Herkenhoff worked in a law firm and eventually participated in the reorganization of the Açude Museum and the Chácara do Céu Museum, both created by the Raymundo Ottoni de Castro Maya Foundation in 1964 and 1972, respectively.

In the following decade, he worked at the Brazilian Art Foundation (FUNARTE) and traveled to several cities in the country. He highlights two works from that period: a show in Curitiba, with the participation of 250 artists from the Americas, and a project in Belém about visuality and diversity of the Amazon.

He was the curator general of the 24th São Paulo Art Biennial, the so-called "Biennial of Anthropophagy," held in 1998. So that the exhibition could have a historiographic and critical character about the city, Herkenhoff considered the Brazilian Anthropophagic Movement as a representation of São Paulo and a response to it. The objective was to address the concept of anthropophagy as a "process of cultural formation with a view to autonomy." Also worthy of note is his curatorship of the Brazilian pavilion at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997.

Herkenhoff has also been director of the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Fine Arts, chief curator of Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Modern Art (MAM), curator of the Eva Klabin Rapaport Foundation, adjunct curator at the Department of Painting and Sculpture at New York's MoMA, and cultural director of the Rio de Janeiro Art Museum (MAR).

At MoMA, in 2002, he had three months to organize the exhibition "Tempo," in which artists from different countries addressed the phenomenological and fictional perceptions of time aspects. It was pointed out by The New York Times as a reference for directions to be taken by the museum.

Herkenhoff's bibliographic production includes works on various Brazilian artists, collections, artistic production in historical periods, and contemporary art in Brazil and Latin America.

Helena Nader

A professor of Molecular Biology at UNIFESP, Helena Nader has allied her teaching and research activities with the role of academic administrator, director of scientific entities and adviser of research support agencies.

Nader has graduated in biomedical sciences from UNIFESP and in biology from USP. She has performed postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California. She is a productivity fellow at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) and of the São Paulo State Academy of Sciences (ACIESP), and participates in The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).

She is an adviser to several national and international journals, and has been a visiting researcher in the United States (Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM) and W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center) and in Italy (Ronzoni Institute for Chemical and Biochemical Research and Opocrin Research Laboratories).

Her main focuses of research are glycobiology, and cellular and molecular biology of proteoglycans, especially heparin and heparan sulfate. Her works are related to the involvement of these compounds in hemostasis, in the control of cell division and in cell transformation.

Helena served as president of SBPC for three terms (2011 to 2017), president of the Brazilian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SBBq), provost for Undergraduation and provost for Postgraduation and Research at UNIFESP, coordinator of the Advisory Committee in Biophysics, Pharmacology, Physiology and Neurosciences (CABF) of CNPq, adjunct coordinator of the Biological Evaluation Area of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), and member of the Biology Coordination of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

Nader received the National Order of Scientific Merit (Comendador class in 2002 and Grand Cross class in 2008), the Brazilian Navy's Tamandare Medal of Merit in 2013, and the 2007 Scopus Award by Elsevier and CAPES.

Photos: Leonor Calasans / IEA-USP

A project of the IEA in partnership with Itaú Cultural Institute, the Olavo Setubal Chair is 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.

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

The official launch took place on February 17, 2016, at a meeting in the President's Office building, with the participation of 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 Institute. 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.

With information from USP's press office

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$ 1,500,000.00, sponsored by the Itaú Cultural Institute. Each program (described below) is granted R$ 150,000.00 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).

In 2020, with the choice of Nestor García Canclini as chair holder, the renewal for another five years of the agreement between the IEA and Itaú Cultural was also celebrated.

Olavo Setubal

Olavo Setubal, a culture supportive

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, of which he was also the director until 2001. 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 19th century French mission during the Empire.

Holders

2024 - Arissana Pataxó, Francy Baniwa, and Sandra Benites

Visual artist, professor and researcher, Arissana Pataxó was born in Porto Seguro (State of Bahia) and is part of the Pataxó ethnic group. She holds a master's degree in ethnic and African studies from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), where she is carrying out doctoral research in visual arts, the area of her graduation from the same University. In her artistic work, she addresses indigenous reality and its interaction with other contemporary realities, making use of various techniques and supports. Francy Baniwa is an anthropologist, writer, photographer, filmmaker, and doctoral candidate in social anthropology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where she became a master in the same area after graduating in sociology from the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM). She is part of the Wanaliana community, located in the Upper Negro River indigenous land in São Gabriel da Cachoeira (State of Amazonas), and has been active in the indigenous movement in the region for more than 10 years. A PhD candidate in anthropology at (UFRJ), Sandra Benites is the director of visual arts at the Brazilian Foundation for the Arts (FUNARTE) and works as an art curator, educator, and activist for the Guarani Nhandeva people. Born in the Porto Lindo indigenous land in Japorã (State of Mato Grosso do Sul), she became a master in social anthropology through the postgraduate program at the National Museum of UFRJ. She has been deputy curator of Brazilian art at the Assis Chateaubriand São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP).

2022/23 - Conceição Evaristo

Author of novels, poetry, short stories, and essays, Conceição Evaristo graduated in literature from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), obtained a master's degree in Brazilian literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ), and a PhD in comparative literature from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF). She defines her work as escrevivência, that is, literary production derived from her life, and the memories and daily lives of people of African descent in Brazil. Her work is considered a reference in the fight against racism and sexismo in the country. Her first publication was at the age of 44, in 1990, in the Cadernos Negros series, by the group Quilombhoje. She is the author of seven books, including Olhos d'Água (2015), winner of the Jabuti Prize. Five of her books have been translated into English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. Evaristo has been awarded the Minas Gerais Government Award for her lifetime of work; the Nicolás Guillén Literature Prize, of the Caribbean Philosophical Association; and the Mestra das Periferias Award, of the Maria and João Aleixo Institute. In 2017, she was honored by the Itaú Cultural Institute with the Conceição Evaristo Occuation and, in 2019, as a literary personality by the Jabuti Prize.

2020/21 - Néstor García Canclini

Born in 1939, Néstor Garcia Canclini is a cultural anthropologist and the first international name to hold the Chair. His research project is entitled "The Institutionality of Culture in the Current Context of Sociocultural Changes, and it approaches the "de-institutionalization" of culture." Canclini is a professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico City and holds a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of La Plata, and the University of Paris Nanterre. He has taught at USP and at universities in the United States, Spain, and Argentina. In 2014, he received Mexico's National Prize for Sciences and Arts. Among his major works is Culturas Híbridas: Estrategias para Entrar y Salir de la Modernidad (1990), which has been awarded honors in the Iberoamerican Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association in 1992. Currently, his research projects are dedicated to the relationships between aesthetics, art, anthropology, creative strategies, and cultural networks of young people. The focus of his work is globalization and cultural changes in Latin America, with a view to the mixtures between cultures, ethnicities, and references of media and of what is popular and traditional. His studies also include themes that are of interest to both cultural policies and the relationship between technology and culture.

2019 - Paulo Herkenhoff and Helena Nader

Paulo Herkenhoff is currently an independent curator. Former cultural director of the Rio de Janeiro Art Museum (MAR). He was also the director of the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Fine Arts (2003-2006), adjunct curator at the Department of Painting and Sculpture at New York's MoMA (1999-2002), curator general of the 24th São Paulo Art Biennial in 1998, curator of the Eva Klabin Rapaport Foundation, and chief curator of Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Modern Art (MAM) (1985-1999). Consultant of the Cisneros Collection (Caracas, Venezuela), and of the 9th Documenta in Kassel, Germany (1991). Helena B. Nader holds a BS in Biological Sciences (medical modality) from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) (1970), a degree in Biology from the University of São Paulo (1971), a PhD in Molecular Biology from UNIFESP (1974) and a post doctorate from the University of Southern California (1977). She is a full professor at UNIFESP since 1989, the president of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC), a full member of the São Paulo Academy of Sciences since 1989 and of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences since 1999. Nader was given the Commander Class of the National Order of Scientific Merit in 2002 and the Grand Cross Class in 2008. In 2005 she was nominated Professor Honoris Causa from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). Nader has been Provost of Graduation (1999-2003) and Post-Graduate Studies and Research (2007-2008) of UNIFESP. Her experience in biochemistry emphasizes glycobiology, and cellular and molecular biology of proteoglycans, especially heparin and heparan sulfate. Her works are related to the involvement of these compounds in hemostasis in the control of cell division and transformation.

2018 - Eliana Sousa Silva

Silva holds a bachelor's degree in Letters from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ - 1987). She obtained a master's degree (1995) in Education and a PhD (2009) in Social Work, both from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ). In 2007, she founded the Tide Development Network, an NGO that aims to develop the largest set of favelas in Rio de Janeiro: Maré. She is the author of a book that brings together testimonials of residents of the neighborhood. "Testemunhos da Maré" was published in 2012. With experience in the elaboration of social projects, Silva works mainly with social movements, favelas, community education, community work, social diagnosis and public safety. Silva was one of ten people and institutions that won the Itaú Cultural 30 Years Award in 2017, when she and archaeologist Niède Guidon were considered in the Inspiring category. She was also awarded the 2005 Women of the Year Award (Social Area) from Rio de Janeiro's Rotary Club, the 2004 Cláudia Award in the Social Work category, conferred by Editora Abril, and the Ashoka Social Entrepreneurs in 2000.

2017 - Ricardo Ohtake

Ricardo Ohtake graduated from the USP's Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in 1968 and runs a graphic design office since then. He has been the director of the São Paulo Cultural Center, of the Museum of Image and Sound and of the Brazilian Cinematheque. He has been the Secretary of Green and Environment of the city of São Paulo, and Secretary of Culture of the State of São Paulo. He has participated in books and exhibitions by architects such as Oscar Niemeyer and Vilanova Artigas. Currently he heads the Tomie Ohtake Institute in São Paulo.

2016 - 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.

News

• Sérgio Rouanet addresses modernity at the opening of the Olavo Setubal Chair
• Sérgio Rouanet inaugurates the Olavo Setubal Chair of Arts, Culture and Science
• The perspectives of culture according to Ricardo Ohtake
• Eliana Sousa Silva, director of the Tide Networks, takes on the Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture and Science
• Paulo Herkenhoff and Helena Nader are the new holders of the Olavo Setubal Chair
• Writer Conceição Evaristo takes office at the Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture, and Science
• Mariko Murata addresses the issues and possibilities of decolonising museums in Japan
• Indigenous women take office as holders of the Olavo Setubal Chair on March 1

Photo on top: Erika Yamamoto

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

When ethologist Eduardo Ottoni, from USP's Institute of Psychology (IP), began researching the use of tools by capuchin monkeys in the 1990s, he did not imagine that his and other researchers' work dedicated to the study of the species were contributing to the consolidation of a new scientific discipline: cultural evolution.

The volume of relevant critical mass in the area led to the creation of the Cultural Evolution Society in 2017, during a meeting in Jena, Germany. "The keynote of that meeting was to optimize the inclusion and interaction of various theoretical and applied perspectives related to the study of cultural phenomena, from the humanities to information and natural sciences," says Ottoni, who joined IEA's Sabbatical Year Program in 2019.

As outcomes of the project "Evolutionary Approaches to Culture," he is writing a textbook on the subject and two articles for specialized periodicals. In addition, the professor is planning a workshop to take place in November. The idea is to invite four foreign researchers, including Rachel Kendal, from the University of Durham, president of the Cultural Evolution Society.

With these contributions, he hopes to foster debates on recent field study perspectives, which include Darwinian approaches to cultural evolution, gene-culture coevolution, extended cognition, and behavioral traditions in nonhuman animals.

Origins

According to Ottoni, there used to be a complete division between the humanities and the biological approaches to cultural evolution, with prejudices on both sides. "Some areas of the human sciences imagined horrible things when one spoke of biology, and there were even pejorative classifications, such as calling someone a 'genetic determinist.'"

In this context, a perspective of cultural anthropology associated with the tabula rasa theory has appeared, making no sense according to the ethologist. "The conception was that evolution gave us the brain and sense organs, with everything related to culture being a social and flexible construction, with nothing to channel or determine it."

On the biological side, restrictions were also established with the Neo-Darwinian synthesis, developed from the late 19th century until the discovery of DNA in the 1940s, says the researcher. "Neo-Darwinism generated a model with more restrictions on culture than Darwin's original model."

The Neo-Darwinian model speaks of "particulate" and non-Lamarckist inheritance (as it would not involve the inheritance of acquired characters) with "blind" variation (in relation to selection), specifies Ottoni. "This model can hardly be applied to culture."

"Darwin speaks basically of inheritable variation with consequences in terms of fitness (aptitude). This model, indeed, serves well to model cultural processes."

The extreme example of this restrictive model has been given by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, "although he has been the creator of the 'meme' concept as a unit of culture transmission," says the professor. "It was a metaphor or a kind of theoretical exercise on the information process."

"For Dawkins, culture affects the success of the organism and thus becomes part of the phenotype in a broader sense of the term, which he calls the extended phenotype (the set of 'selectable' characteristics of the individual). The implication of this is that culture affects fitness but is not 'inherited' in the same way as genes."

Coevolution

These humanistic and biological conceptions have allowed for a lot of discussion, but they have been replaced by a new point of view: cultural aspects would not be something isolated from the organism, but a very important part in the processes of biological evolution, Ottoni explains.

"Genetic evolution is no longer considered as the only information transmission line in time. Cultural evolution has come to be considered another transmission line, with somewhat different rules in its dynamics. Both lines interact and there is also a perspective that has gained visibility and relevance: culture would not be exclusive to humans."

Ottoni says that the reason he ended up heading to this area was the discussion of cultural processes in capuchin monkeys after the initially accidental discovery that they use tools and that they learned to use them with each other. "We already knew of the more sophisticated use of tools by chimpanzees."

Researchers began to discard anything that could be explained by genetic variation or, in the case of differences in behavior between groups, by ecological differences. "Having discarded these aspects, we must verify the degree of importance of social interaction for learning."

This approach has been applied to the use of tools by nonhuman primates: chimpanzees, monkeys, and orangutans. The idea of existence of cultural processes in other nonhuman animals has also been present in studies of vocal communication in cetaceans, experimental studies with fish, and in other cases, adds the ethologist.

All of this echoed general evolution models and authors working on the idea of niche construction: "In a more traditional evolutionary model, individuals expose their extended phenotype to the environment and nature kills some more than others. However, every organism minimally transforms its environment, but some transform it more and will change the selective pressures to which they are subject."

As an example he cites the termite, whose organic structure is adequate to live in the controlled temperature and humidity of the termite mound built by the colony. "It could not stand to be exposed to the savannah climate." This concept of niche-building in evolutionary biology has been developed over almost a century, and though it still generates many polemics it has become a classic, says Ottoni.

"But there is also the idea of the niche's cultural construction, something more intense and determining. This changes the organism-environment relationship in natural selection: when the organism transforms the environment, other things get to be selected."

Capuchin monkey breaking nuts with stones at Serra da Capivara National Park

Machiavellian intelligence

The classical anthropological conception was that ecological aspects of natural selection produced the development of human intellect. "According to this explanation, the hominins went out into the savannah and lacked the survivability their predators had in that space, needing to build weapons since they also lacked the predators' natural utilities such as claws and tusks. Basically, it is an idea of technology supplying natural needs."

In contrast, the hypothesis of what became known as "Machiavellian intelligence" emerged. Supporters of this idea argued that the pressures of social complexity would have been more important for the evolution of primate intellect than the development of technologies.

"A submodel for social learning arose from the hypothesis about the social origins of the intellect: the idea of cultural intelligence. This means that if humans, ever since their ancestors, increasingly depend on technological development and relationship dynamics, they increasingly depend on culture. Thus, everything that genetically favors the evolution of capacities that predispose to the aptitude for socially mediated learning and the establishment of cultural processes would be part of a selection process."

Ottoni claims that this ability was a specific selective pressure that marked the history of primates. "It started with primatologists and then expanded to the study of other animals."

Until recently, however, many researchers called whatever perpetuated through socially mediated learning in nonhuman primates "traditions," he notes. "'Tradition' is not a good word because it denotes vertical transmission from generation to generation, while cultural transmission also happens between individuals of the same age group horizontally."

What should be used is "culture," with a status similar to "genetics," argues the professor. In this model, there is a flow of information that is marginal but interdependent with genetics. "If we call this process 'cultural,' the questions change: does human culture have peculiarities or is it just a case of hypertrophy? If it is peculiar, then what happens differently in humans?"

Faced with these questions, scientists have refined learning concepts, as in the case of imitation, according to Ottoni. "Maybe only humans imitate in the strict sense of the term. Is there such imitation in chimpanzees?"

The key issue is to operationally define these aspects in order to compare socially mediated learning processes in humans and nonhumans, and see what is different, says the researcher. One of the "hottest" research themes in this scenario today is that of cumulative culture: "Human culture is clearly cumulative, with progressive improvements."

Photos (from the top): Leonor Calasans / IEA-USP and Tiago Falótico / IP-USP

The dossier resumes the discussion on unemployment begun in a previous issue with seven articles by historians, sociologists and economists. The opening article, by Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa, from USP's Institute of Brazilian Studies (IEB), outlines the general characteristics of the labour market formation process in Brazil. The panorama analyzed by Barbosa addresses the colonial period up to the end of the process of industrialization (1930-80).

The set of texts also analyzes specific issues such as labour in the Northeast of Brazil, the effects of economic recession, the reduction of social protection of workers and inequality in the gender division of labour.

The section "Energy and Environment" contains five articles on national energy programs and shows that "conviviality is not always easy to ecological ideals and growth policies," according to the journal's editor, Alfredo Bosi.

This second aspect is discussed in an article by Helena Margarido Moreira and Wagner Costa Ribeiro on the position of China in the negotiations on climate change. The authors comment that China seeks to ensure the principle of differentiated responsibilities and be classified as a developing country, avoiding compromising its domestic goals of economic development. The same section presents texts on the interaction of botany and geography with anthropological and environmental bodies.

The articles of the section "Culture and Politics" address controversial issues of social sciences today: multiculturalism seen from the universal and the particular dialectic perspective; the analysis of the June 2013 demonstrations in Brazil from the perspective of the political culture of consumption; the debate on the relationship between science, expertise and democracy; and the treatment given by the media to the Quotas Act. The section also brings a history of the 25 years of work of the Escola de Governo (School of Government), an institution dedicated to explain the working mechanism of political institutions and to cooperate with the correction of the course of the Brazilian political life, according to one of its founders, jurist Fábio Konder Comparato.

Texts that address the indigenous people Arara Karo, computational complexity, and books on Walter Benjamin and Haiti complete the issue.

The list below contains the names of the authors who have contributed with each one of the addressed themes:

Labour market

Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa
Monica Duarte Dantas
Vivian Chieregati Costa
Roberto Véras de Oliveira
Magda Barros Biavaschi
José Alcides Figueiredo Santos
Luiz Vicente Fonseca Ribeiro
Maria Cristina Cacciamali
Fabio Tatei
Luana Passos de Souza
Dyeggo Rocha Guedes

Energy and Environment

Edgar Antonio Perlotti
Edmilson Moutinho dos Santos
Hirdan Katarina de Medeiros Costa
Marcilei Andrea Pezenatto Vignatti
Luiz Fernando Scheibe
Maria Assunta Busato
Antonio Salatino
Marcos Buckeridge
Raquel Dezidério Souto
Helena Margarido Moreira
Wagner Costa Ribeiro

Culture and Politics

Celso Frederico
Isleide Fontenelle
Maya Mitre
Maria Salete Magnoni
Fábio Konder Comparato

Indigenism

Betty Mindlin

Computation

José Roberto Castilho Piqueira

Reviews

Fabio Mascaro Querido
Cristine Koehler Zanella

At the event, Menninghaus will present the results of a research project that is being developed with the goal of establishing "being moved" and "being touched" as concepts of genuine emotion and revealing their role in aesthetic appreciation. According to the researcher, “this includes a novel perspective on the time-honored issue of aesthetic pleasure associated with negative emotions."

Full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Menninghaus is founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, created in 2013 with the proposal to use scientific methods to investigate the psychological, sociocultural and neural bases of aesthetic perceptions, preferences and reviews. His research focuses on the philosophical, evolutionary and empirical / psychological aesthetics; models, boundary phenomena and aesthetic functions of mythology and lifeworld, and literature since 1750, with emphasis on German Romanticism and literature of the 20th century.

The opening of the conference will be in charge of Helmut Galle, professor of German Literature at the Department of Modern Languages of USP’s Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH).

The event will be broadcast live on the web.