Abstract The dystopian character of Joca Reiners Terron’s A morte e o meteoro (2019) is indissociable from its critique of colonialism. But while the novel makes frequent references to the violent methods of exploitation that characterized American colonization, it mostly relies on allusions to different literary traditions—including gothic fiction, the adventure novel, and science fiction—in its depiction of colonialism. The dialogue with Heart of Darkness plays a significant role in A morte e o meteoro, which to a large extent is a critical rereading of Conrad’s novella. This article examines how this appropriation of textual and cultural paradigms shapes the dystopian outlook of the novel, while also offering alternatives to the hopelessness that defines its fictional world.

Resumo: O romance Stone, de autoria de Adam Roberts, é a narrativa em primeira pessoa de Ae, o único criminoso em uma utopia pós-humana na qual o uso da nanotecnologia levou a humanidade à plenitude. Nessa sociedade, Ae é um excluído. Um dia, porém, ele recebe uma proposta de liberdade e riqueza em troca de matar toda a população de um planeta. Ao aceitá-la, Ae deve tentar cumprir sua missão ao mesmo tempo em que se questiona e investiga quem o teria contratado. No conflito entre esse indivíduo desviante e a utopia, Stone examina os próprios limites dessa utopia, apoiada na ideia de fluxo e indefinição, e dos modelos de subjetividade que ela cria. A noção de utopia como um projeto social bem definido é trocada pela imagem de corpos utópicos, influenciados por tecnologias que põem em questão as definições de humano e pós-humano. Nessa rede de tensões e indefinições, levanta-se a possibilidade de que o indivíduo marginalizado e sociopata seria o único capaz de examinar de forma profunda a realidade num mundo anestesiado pelo conforto.

Abstract: Ae, the narrator-protagonist of the novel Stone, by Adam Roberts, is the only criminal in a post-human utopian society in which the use of nanotechnology has allowed humanity to reach its plenitude. Isolated from the rest of society, one day Ae is offered freedom and wealth if he agrees to kill the population of a whole planet. After accepting this offer, Ae must try to fulfil his mission at the same time that he questions himself and tries to discover who his employers are. In developing the conflict between this deviant individual and the utopia in which he lives, Stone examines the limits of the utopia itself, which is based on the idea of flux and indefiniteness. The novel also explores the models of subjectivity created in the context of this utopia. The notion of utopia as a well-defined social project is replaced by the image of utopian bodies, influenced by technologies that challenge the definitions of the human and of the post-human. In establishing this network of tensions and indefiniteness, the novel offers the possibility that the marginalized sociopath might be the only one capable of examining in depth the reality of a world anesthetized by its own comfort.

Resumo Helena é o romance mais sentimental de Machado de Assis. No entanto, a tradição sentimental é articulada de forma extremamente complexa e problemática nessa obra. O objetivo deste trabalho é examinar como essa tradição é explorada em Helena para revelar as relações de poder que caracterizavam o convívio social na época de Machado, dominada pelo patriarcalismo, e que os romances brasileiros que o antecederam procuravam contornar. Em Helena, o código sentimental surge como uma maneira de mediar essas relações de poder, ao mesmo tempo em que as reproduz, demonstrando as contradições presentes na maneira como esse código era apropriado nos romances brasileiros do século XIX e dando-lhe um novo significado.

Abstract Helena is the most sentimental of Machado de Assis’s novels. However, the sentimental tradition is articulated in an extremely complex and problematic way in this novel. The aim of this paper is to examine how this tradition is explored in Helena to reveal the power relations that characterized the patriarchal society in which Machado lived, and which earlier Brazilian novels tried to dodge. In Helena, the sentimental code functions as a means to mediate between these power relations, while it perpetuates them, revealing the contradictions in the way this code was appropriated in nineteenth-century Brazilian novels and giving it a new meaning.

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to investigate a recurring image in graphic novels published from the 1980s to the present day: that of a pile of bodies on which the protagonist or another character in the narrative is placed. Variations on this image point to important representations of the body and personal identity in our society. They also problematize our perceptions of ourselves, of the world around us, and of our own memories. By comparing some of them, I will explore the tensions and contradictions present in these representations, and examine the ways in which they can lead to an expression of utopian desires.

O objetivo deste artigo é examinar a maneira como a estética dos filmes noir é apropriada por Lourenço Mutarelli em sua narrativa em quadrinhos Diomedes: a trilogia do acidente. Dividida entre a tentativa de representar o real e um forte impulso de estilização, essa estética age como elemento estruturador da narrativa, criando um mundo caracterizado pelo excesso e a degradação, do qual aparentemente não há saída.

The aim of this paper is to examine the way the aesthetics of film noir is appropriated by Lourenço Mutarelli in his graphic novel Diomedes: a trilogia do acidente. Torn between an attempt to represent the real and a strong impulse towards stylization, this aesthetics acts as a structuring element of the narrative, creating a world characterized by excess and degradation, from which apparently there is no way out.