Mauro Rovai

Mauro Rovai is a professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Unifesp, and holds a degree in Social Sciences, a master's degree and a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Sao Paulo, and a post-doctorate at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas. He completed post-doctoral internships in Lisbon in 2006 and in Paris between 2012 and 2015 - with a scholarship from FAPESP. Main research interest is the relationship between image, subjectivity and social theory.

The project

Title: The abyss on the web. “Warning device” and sociological analysis in three contemporary films

"The aim of this research is to discuss the notion of enterprise as a social imaginary meaning in three contemporary films– Sorry we missed you (dir. Ken Loach, Royaume-Unis, France, Belgique, 2019), Exile (dir. Visar Morina, Alemanha, Bélgica, Kossovo, 2020) and Un autre monde (dir. Stéphane Brizé, France, 2021). The idea is to identify certain approaches, distances or emphases that enable us to put certain aspects of contemporary society into perspective, especially those in which the corporate form is dominant in the way people give meaning to life, and the world they inhabit. The hypothesis is that these films form a kind of triptych and that, together, they could be seen as a “warning device”, since the elements within them insist and haunt, are more linked to the desire for heteronomy than autonomy. From a methodological point of view, both the epistemic basis - the theoretical underpinnings that allow us to treat images and sounds as objects of invertigation in sociology - that procedural - the mode of analysis - is mediated by two authors: sociologist Pierre Francastel and historian Pierre Sorlin. The main aim is to give the analysis of the films a heuristic character, by getting them to talk, based on the hypothesis of her plastic, expressive universe, and not to consider them as secondary material to prove what other fields of social science have already shown through other methods."

Hosting institution: École Normale Supérieure (ENS)

Selective Bibliography

• Endless Exile - Alain Resnais’s The War Is Over. Social Sciences 13: 53. (Review for Social Sciences), 2024. Academic Editor: Ilaria Riccioni.
• A figuração do sagrado em España heroica: um excurso sociológico. Sociologias (UFRGS), v.25, p.e-soc123973 - 1-24, 2023.
• Não morte, pensamento e vida em 'O filho de Saul'. Novos Estudos. CEBRAP, v. 40, p. 175-191, 2021. (Avec Rita Paiva).
• Viver e morrer em san junipero. Revista Sociologia e Antropologia, v. 13, p. 1-23, 2023. (Avec Nayara do Nascimento).
• ROVAI, Mauro. A condição vulnerável: a perda do sentimento de existir. São Paulo: Editora Unifesp, 2023, v.1. p.168. (Avec Claudine Haroche et Rita Paiva). Livre / chapitre de livre.