CADERNO DE RESUMOS II Congresso Internacional da ... - Unesp

II Congresso Internacional da ABRAPUIwhole mindset. Now, no one needs to belabour the point thatours is a time of rapid, breath-taking changes. Globalization isa fact of the matter. Whatever our ideological positioning in respectof this phenomenon, one thing that cannot be denied is thatthe world is unrecognizably different from what it used to be,say, half a century ago. Distances have shrunk thanks to jetengines and broadband Internet and what have you. Time zoneshave been transformed into jet lags.These mind-boggling changes demand that we rethink our waysof theorizing language which, for the most part, remain faithfulto a largely 19 th century world-view. For a start, consider thefact that our ideas about what constitutes the identity – be itof elementary entities around us or, for that matter, ourselvesas individuals, has undergone profound changes. Recall, forinstance, Barrack Obama’s memorable phrase in his inauguralspeech “our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness”– he might have just as well spoken of our patchwork identities,or our “mongrel selves”, to use Salman Rushdie’s expression.In my presentation, my main objective is to make some foraysinto the uncharted territory of what the future may hold for us,by expatiating on some of what I see as hallmarks of the present.The question of language, particularly the English language, willbe at the centre of my attention.Dublin Dialogues: Joyce, ‘Inner Speech’ and the CityProf. Dr. Luke Gibbons (University of Notre Dame/NUI Maynooth)In this talk, I argue that for all his emphasis on inner lifeand ‘stream of consciousness’, James Joyce was, in effect, retrieving‘interiority’ and individualism for a social and political project.In keeping with Lev Vygotsky’s theories of thought and language,Joyce’s version of ‘inner speech’ operates in the open, in thepublic world, as well as in the psychic space of the mind, andis bound up with the cultural idioms of a colonized culture. Insteadof Ireland acting as an impediment to Joyce’s experiments instyle, such layered, dialogical uses of language are responsiblefor much of his innovations and avant-garde techniques, thusexemplifying an early, radical example of vernacular modernism.47