O artigo aqui apresentado faz parte de uma elaboração sistemática de estilos iconográficos e suas respectivas mensagens iconológicas da cultura visual cristã, com foco na arte religiosa devocional. A obra em questão é um interessante exemplo flamengo da linguagem visual católica em uso cem anos depois da reforma protestante e criada, provavelmente, entre a Trégua dos Doze Anos e o início da[s] Guerra[s] dos Trinta Anos. É estudo a gravura Homo moriens de Hieronymus Wierix do ano [1609/1619]. Formalmente, trata-se de (...) um emblema clássico composto por uma Inscriptio, Pictura e Subscriptio. A obra é lida por meio do método iconológico de Erwin Panofsky. Conclua-se que se o tom da narrativa visual não é polêmico ou controverso, mas, pastoral e especialmente sensíveis à necessidade religiosa de pessoas que se encontram no leito da morte. Trata-se de um discurso visual “interno” da igreja, que dá jus às ênfases soteriológicas estabelecidas pelo Concílio de Trento em uma perspectiva de cuidado, construindo certezas, para poder enfrentar a inevitável agonia. (shrink)

In 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030 people would work only fifteen hours per week and enjoy more free time and leisure, that we would return to “principles of religion and traditional virtue,” declaring “love of money morbid, semi-criminal, and semi-pathological,” and that “we shall once more value ends above means.” But today, we do not see that this prophesy has proven true. Something must have gone wrong. We do not sufficiently know the distinction between (...) needs and wants, absolute values and relative values, what a good life is, and how to live it. In this essay, I will present and discuss ideas from Confucius, Aristotle, Zhuangzi, and the Stoics that I think are deep and meaningful and can help us free ourselves from evolutionary programming and blind belief in economic and technological growth. (shrink)

The knowledge of opinion leaders to a certain extent has always been taken for granted by communication scholars. This article investigates what opinion leaders really know. Two studies will be presented to answer the above question. Participants of the first study were assessed according to ratings on three scales of opinion leadership, personality strength and political knowledge. In the second study, respondents were assessed according to ratings of opinion leadership and political knowledge. In both studies, it was found that opinion (...) leaders can be divided into ‘informed opinion leaders’, who know a lot in their area of interest, and ‘uninformed opinion leaders’, who are ill-informed about the field they claim as theirs. In both studies ‘informed opinion leaders’ read newspapers approximately one hour longer per week than ‘uninformed opinion leaders’. (shrink)