Café Philo Lisbon

Lorena Tiberi has just informed me of a wonderful initiative that the Crossways group in Lisbon is putting together - its essentially a Café Philo, a reading group and discussion group that is interested in taking, as a point of departure, extracts from a willing Crossways student's dissertation report or dissertation itself. The student would essentially offer their text, high-lighting perhaps the most important sections and then this text would form the basis of a round table discussion among the Crossways team and other interested students and academics in Lisbon. Needless to say this is a very interesting opportunity to gain both greater expousure and to also be able to respond to critisisms levelled at the work so as to improve it ahead of submission or publication.

The students who offer their work are not excluded from participation, and while physically going to lisbon may be a little far, Lorenza has suggested the use of Skype as a medium that would allow the student in question to take part no matter where they are within the Crossways consortium. Furthermore this initiative has implications for both the virtual symposium and the initiative by Roberta, to present more student research online. One could imagine that a podcast or video cast of the proceedings be linked online, or the participation of any number of students via a skype group call, these suggestions are not without technical difficulties, but are not insurmountable. Any thoughts, suggestions or volunteers would be most welcome in the comments suggestion below.

Electronic Academic Resources

Sorting out references and finding books can sometimes be a little challenging, especially given the fact that we move every semester. Carry your own portable library across the continent is both a recipe for disaster and can be a complete nightmare as books, while useful and necessary are also extremely heavy. E-books offer a fairly good solution to the problem, and while not all books are available online, you could at least reduce the amount of books and photocopies that you need to carry by using some of the online resources detailed below.

Google Books (http://books.google.com/books) is one of the best resources online, comprising a vast library of scanned searchable titles, Google books can help you track down that elusive citation or see whether a book you need is worthwhile ordering. Its especially useful when you only need to consult one or two pages or a single section – as the whole book is not always available.

JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org) is one of the best electronic journal archives out there, both Sheffield and St Andrews have access to this excellent resource. In addition St Andrews has off campus access so once you’ve been to St Andrews you can access the journal from anywhere. There are similar electronic journal archives for each of the major languages and the librarians at your current university will be able to help you gain access. Journal archives enable you to rapidly find papers on topics that you need, and generally provide these papers as PDF downloads, which you can store on your computer, search and even print should you need a hardcopy.

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) is the academic search engine related to Google’s highly successful online search engine. Google scholar searches academic books, journals and conferences to deliver academically orientated results. This is a more general search than one that could be conducted in JSTOR and the only weak point is that the results are not always accessible, ie the search engine returns results for journal archives that require specific subscriptions that your university may or may not have. However it is a good way in which one may find out whether a vital paper exists on the required subject, which can then be ordered or accessed by other means.

Finally, probably the greatest benefit of electronic resources, over and above the fact that they weigh virtually nothing, is that they are fully searchable, which saves a lot of time skim reading and allows one to quickly establish the interest of a book or article when one is unsure of its validity.

Research Abstracts

As part of the effort to increase both the participation and the academic content of the Crossways blog, Roberta Gregoli suggested that we invite past and present members of the program to submit abstracts for the research that they are currently engaged in, be it for their Crossways Masters, or for further studies, or for conference or journal submission. Hopefully we can build up a data base of the research that has been performed and which is ongoing, enabling the demonstration of the academic quality of this program to potential employers, applicants and other stake holders.

Herewith the first abstract from Roberta Gregoli

TRANSNATIONAL RECEPTION OF CITY OF GOD AND ELITE SQUAD

GENDER, SPECTATORSHIP AND IDENTITY

Roberta Gregoli

Brazilian cinema has historically had a pivotal role in raising social issues. Recently, it has been the recipient of considerable attention worldwide, and a catalyst for the debate of urban problems such as social inequality, drug trafficking, and violence in the favelas (slums). Although the favela is not a new topos in Brazilian cinema, City of God (Cidade de Deus, 2002) and Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite, 2007) have been particularly successful in reviving its representation while problematising it in the public forum. Such vivid debate seems to reflect, and only be enabled by, spectators’ deep engagement with national film. Notwithstanding, despite the popularity of Brazilian cinema among the public, critics, and the media, the relationship between cinema and audience and its ability to reflect, as well as affect, social issues seem not to have been explored, there being a scarcity of research on film reception, particularly empirical, in Brazil. It is thus the aim of this study to investigate theories of reception and spectatorship through the analysis of audience reaction to City of God and Elite Squad. Due to current interest in transnational studies and the relevance of analysis involving empirical data, the two films are investigated through the examination of 238 responses collected from three groups: non-Brazilian, Brazilian middle class, and Brazilian favela inhabitants. The films will be examined through the weaving of empirical data and theories pertaining cinematic spectatorship, gender and the relationship between cinema and national identity. While analysis of the data has yielded thought-provoking insights on notions of masculinity and identity in the context of postmodern theorisation, the study advocates for further research in the field of cinematic spectatorship in Brazil.