Theme 1 - Modernity and the chalenges of brazilian development

Brazil is experiencing problems that range between its past and challenges for the future. Past and Future are the present of our institutions, of our culture, of the way we think, of the kind of society we build, and of the way in which we insert ourselves in the world. We are also defined within a spatial axis, taking from the relations between center and periphery, east and west, north and south. The country becomes modern, it erases the slave rule of the law, but it also wants to erase its past of slavery, which insists on making itself present even today. Along its journey, order and progress are accompanied by the reproduction of traces of differentiation, hierarchy, and inequality. The fact that in Brazil the creation of the University was so late only reinforces the vices of our modernization. What is understood here as modernity is presented both as a problem, and as a diverse mode. Such diversity in fact presents itself in relation to when, where, and why one moves into modernity, what does exactly define the stepping into modernity: autonomy of reason, in particular in the light of religious dogmas? Or would that be greater attention to the present and mistrust of eternal truth? Would that be a new understanding of what knowledge is, and of the role that evidence plays there? Would that be the creation of the National States, stemming from the idea of sovereign power? Would that be the discovery of "new worlds"? Would that be the splitting between nature and culture, between nature and freedom? Would that be the disregard of the classicist canon and a naturalistic representation in the history of art, and the emergence of a criterion of disregard for the aesthetic experience? The theme involves the critique of our cultural and scientific productions, institutions, practices and policies, and it articulates itself taking from the critical-normative, aesthetic, artistic, epistemological, political, sociological, international and, of course, anthropological and historical perspectives as well. What unifies this effort is the clear relevance of theoretical reflection, in its diversity, as a logical space to rethink our culture, community project, and society, globally, considering its ability to keep dialogues with different kinds of knowledge, taking the University not as the sole locus of producing legitimate knowledge, but as part of a network of multiple kinds of knowledge, that it connects, and that are strengthened in the process of (re)defining our forms of coexistence. Finally, it is a matter of thinking about the agenda that we represent as ours, which will define our identity and insertion in the international scenario.

UFBA and the world of humanities research

Since its founding, the Federal University of Bahia has undergone significant exchanges with universities and research institutions abroad. More often than not, however, they are isolated actions, without broad repercussions of the core of the University, although some of its bodies have been specially directed to this. The objective here is to enhance the impact of internationalization beyond individual research, so that it can be felt in the life of the University. That is, it is expected that the research agenda, defined here from a central theme, but without prejudice to specific projects, will be lived in from undergraduate to postgraduate. The University will not be able to internationalize if this process is not felt in every classroom, in each laboratory or research group. That which is evident to the said natural and exact sciences is no less true of the human sciences. Today's research experience means, to a large extent, the participation of a network of researchers in constant dialogue, when nothing by means of their productions. This reality needs to be shown to the entire student body, not just to those more involved in research projects such as PIBIC or PET.