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In our materialistic world, where everyone avoids suffering, we seem to need the help of romantic poets, such as William Blake and John Keats, who make us see beauty everywhere. Our choice is also justified because they both share an interest for the concept of soul and for the more subjective and irrational aspects of human nature, such as emotion, imagination and introspection. Blake stands out because he is a fundamental figure in the history of poetry and visual arts and, from his work, we will mainly focus Songs of Innocence and Experience to which the poet-artist attributed the subtitle Showing the Two Contrary Statesof Human Soul, thus warning his readers that he would analyze the concept of soul in which he thought there were "necessary oppositions".

With the publication of this number we celebrate the 4th year of Gaudium Sciendi. The balance of the work done up to now is positive as we can conclude from the increase of the number of visitors to our site and the permanent flow of proposals for publication in Portuguese, English and French. One of the distinguishing characteristics of our review is the fact that it is on-line and open access. This may be considered both positive and negative, according to our readers' perspective. The debate about the advantageof "technoliteracy" is one of the most discussed topics nowadays mainly in the scope of education. As to the interaction between word and image, we know that, in spite of having their own identities, thecombination of the verbal and the iconic promotes and intensifies new interpretations of the text, we have, therefore, chosen the so-called "multiple literacy approach" for Gaudium Sciendi. To conclude the Editorial we make several references to the different articles.

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In Plato's dialogue, Menexenus, a kind of complementary piece to the Gorgias, Socrates shows the power of "harmful" rhetoric by example, in the composition of a funeral oration. In a famous modern reading, Karl Popper accuses Plato of writing a devastating parody of Pericles' Funeral Oration, a cornerstone in the memory of Athenian democracy, proffered half a century before the drafting of the Republic. Pericles who is not innocent of some populist concessions, according to Popper, belongs to the group of defenders of "egalitarian individualism", typical of the Great Generation," and his speech conveys a political program that we cherish. Pericles is aware that democracy is not limited to mere principle that 'the people shall govern', but must be based on reason and faith in human kindness. There is much to say about Popper's reading of Plato dialogues, but he certainly does not ignore Platonic political dimension. This paper, which introduces the first Portuguese translation of the dialogue, emphasizes the paradoxical nature of the relation between democratic politics and rhetoric since the enlightenment and directs our attention to a platonic theme: autochthony and citizenship.

In Des Hommes et des Dieuxand The Tree of Life, both Xavier Beauvois and Terrence Malick are concerned with values that from the beginning of time to our day have set the human heart wondering and speculating. These issues are brought to their respective films in a distinctive style, which, however, may be closely associated with a common trait in both directors –creative imagination and zest to make the most out of the art of cinema. Their skillful exploration of filmic devices, their invitation to other artistic expressions, namely music and painting, to figure in their films in a signifying role, is tentatively accounted for in this essay, in order to show how a visual narrative, in the case of Beauvois, and an ever-flowing succession of images, in the case of Malick, may contribute to illustrate unsuspected structural and thematic affinities, their remarkable differences notwithstanding.

The roots of Western thought lie deep within remote cultures. We shall briefly explore some features Western societies have derived from ancient Neolithic, Middle Eastern and Northern African cultures. In cultures as ancient as the Sumerians, Acadians, Persians, and Egyptians, we find the same leitmotifs, the same structural patterns we normally attribute to Judeo-Christianity and to the Classical world. We shall focus on those shared features, in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the complexity and continuity of human thought throughout the ages.

Modern society is much indebted to the Victorian Age, an era of immeasurable progress and development, namely in the fields of science and technology. Indeed, the Victorian aesthetic, along with its distinctive tropes and motifs, have remained influential in contemporary literature and art. At the end of the twentieth-century, the emergence of Neo-Victorian Studies, whose endeavour is to understand how these structures and ideals are appropriated and re-defined in art and literature today, bears witness to this cultural influence.Because Neo-Victorianism is a recent field of studies, scholars still battle with a solid definition. Nevertheless, most agree to determine it in relation to adaptations and/or appropriations of Victorian motifs, themes or structures. With these ideas in mind, this article explores how V for Vendetta, both the graphic novel – written by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and serialized between 1982 and 1989, – and the movie – directed by James McTeigue and released in 2006 – which seem, at first sight, to have no connection to anything remotely Victorian, appropriate and transpose Victorian tropes to a future dystopian time in order to create two analogous expressionsof Neo-Victorianism.

Remembered mostly as a novelist, but also a journalist, an essayist, a playwright and a traveller, Dickens (1812-1870) published AChild's History of England in Household Words, a periodical founded by himself (1850), between 1851 and 1853. Derek Hudson describes the book as "(...) an unsparing picture of prolonged wickedness in high places, exposed with lurid detail and much rough sarcasm."(in Dickens s. d., x); and, in fact, AChild'sHistoryprovides some stereotyped judgements and unfortunate statements, which contrast sharply with Dickens's panegyric on Alfred of Wessex (n. 849, r. 871-899). This article will then seek to look into, behind and beyond Dickens's eulogy of "Alfred, the Great", also called and known as "the English Charlemagne" and "England's Darling".

This paper, that seeks to understand the relationship between mass media and transportation in society, stresses the impact of new electronic devices on people’s lives and, especially, on their holidays and free time. It stems from two ideas as theoretical hypothesis, the first one being that people, while on a nomadic life during their holidays, do not abandon routine tasks such as checking their email. The second one is that, in spite of the fact that the postmodern idea of global village means similarity, each place is different, which makes people travel to know them. I had detected two types in the observation: short connection time, use of computer for useful purposes (e-mail, social networks).

Ce n'est pas étonnant qu’Angelina de Sousa Mendes, la femme d’Aristides de Sousa Mendes, un héros intemporel, a été dans l'invisibilité. Les actes désintéressés ne pouvaient pas être évalués particulièrement depuis le destin tragique du couple et de leurs enfants, au Portugal. En fait, Angelina ne se limite pas à des rôles traditionnels des femmes. Cette dame à multiples facettes a dépassé de loin sur une mission et une tâche dangereuse, en temps de guerre, en adhérant à des causes humanitaires. Donc, elle sort de l'invisibilité et l'oubli montrant comment elle est bien au-delà de son temps.

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, it will aim to demonstrate that Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883) can be read as a warning against the emergence of anti-colonial resistance movements, by the end of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, it will show how Martel'sLife of Pi (2001) can be read as a metaphorical account of the process of colonization, subsequent resistance and ultimate fragmentation of the Empire; Secondly, the role of the hybrid character will be examined, as well as, its relationship with space. With this purpose in mind, throughout this article, the spatial boundaries in which the main characters move will be analysed, in order to understand the various phases of colonialism and their relationship withterritory.

Not bearing in mind all the polemic discussions on the question of abortion, we centre our attention on the fundamental issue, the comprehension of the reality of that which is the "thing that can be aborted". What is its ontological statute? What is its relation to the human action that decides on the possibility of its ontology? What ethical and political importance does the decision of what to do with the "thing that can be aborted" have?

Academic library leaders are increasingly engaged in the internationalization efforts of their universities, and many are involved in global activities within the profession. What are the role expectations, professional demands, and personal factors that influence their decisions to be involved, and what kinds of activities do these motivations spawn? This paper explores the academic library leader's experience atthe international level.This heuristic, phenomenological study of the author's own experiences from a U.S. perspective, situated within the experiences of other Western, Anglo academic library leaders, describes both present initiatives and future directions.

Since Aristotlethat women are regarded as responsible for their home finances. Consequently, they are accused of consumerism and of spending on fashion and cosmetics to look beautiful and feminine. Our purpose in this paper is to analyse the use of money as a means of feminine seduction. Joan Rivière, in "Womanliness as Masquerade",declared that women put on a mask of womanliness to avert the retribution feared from men and Irena Krzywicka thought they needed to abandon "the masquerade" they used to highlight their feminine side for the benefit of men. Later, Lacan also considers that women hide lack and adorn their bodies to attract male gaze andLuce Irigaray declares their needs are dictated by men’s desire. Judith Butler points out the extent to which the masquerade is indicative of "a coercive heterocentric matrix". Baudrillard in Seduction spoke of power as a form of seduction and of the figure of desire that does not belong to the masters but is produced by the oppressed. Hence in the end we conclude that women need tolearn new ways of living, or rather to unlearn the roles traditionally subscribed to womanhood, and to become part of society through rational acquisition of skills and responsibilities

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A reflection which seeks to put the humanities question in a plan beyond epistemological, sociocultural, political and institutional considerations or of a mere instrumental legitimation. Humanities are seen as an exercise of memory, but memory as expectation and openness to the future, its work consists of a process of identification and recognition. Humanities then appear as mediation operators. Cultivating Humanity: the title of M. Nussbaum's work imposes itself as the permanent program of Humanities.

A gift only exists as a gift according to a trinitary structure. Gratitude is immanent to the acceptance of the gift. The same could be said about "grace", which means exactly the same as gift. The Church reminds us, in the Mass prefaces, that we should give graces to God always and everywhere, for there is no time or place in which the loving grace of the Father, the son and the holy spirit does not involve us.

The ‘Two Worlds Theory’ constitutes a specific interpretation of Plato’s conclusion of Book V of the Republic, and the question of whether it is a correct reading or the only reading of this inquiry remains open. The Theory suggests that being and becoming are separated from one another to such an extent that they constitute two absolutely distinct realms, which seems to contradict the assumption that the things that become (the particulars) bear a likeness to what is, i.e. the Forms—which Socrates himself assumes. But the scope of human access to knowledge (the power that deals with what "in every way is"), following from man’s participating in the realm of the particulars (that of becoming), seems to suggest an intermingling, a blend, a gradation from being to becoming to not being. Human beings would not be able to think or conceive of what is at all (there could not exist even an attempt at knowledge) if there were not this gradation being manifested, this blend of being and not being. This is because the nature of what is and what is in between what is and what is not would be entirely distinct, i.e. comprising two different realms. We suggest that this sort of absolute demarcation would seem to apply to that between being and not being, as being entirely distinct from one another. This said, the alternative Blend and Gradation Theory also presents the problem that, if becoming is indeed a blend of being and not being with access to the two of them and not completely isolated, and if being and not being are completely distinct, at what point does becoming "cease to be", as it were? At what point does becoming lose its participation in being completely, and become what is not? This, we suggests, constitutes a real conceptual and metaphysical problem, and therefore warrants attempts at reconciliation.