{"id":28934,"date":"2011-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisaclone.fapesp.br\/2011\/05\/01\/laura-de-mello-e-souza-a-country-called-the-past-2\/"},"modified":"2017-02-20T11:21:46","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T14:21:46","slug":"laura-de-mello-e-souza-a-country-called-the-past-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/laura-de-mello-e-souza-a-country-called-the-past-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura de Mello e Souza: A country called the past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"EDUARDO CESAR<\/span><\/p>\n

“History requires imagination and a\u00a0lot of e\u000effort, a lot of discipline, like\u00a0a rehearsed stage show: the curtain\u00a0rises, everything appears in its\u00a0place, so harmonious and so fluent.\u00a0But months and years go by before this stage is\u00a0reached. That\u2019s why I\u2019m fascinated by ballerinas \u2014\u00a0how much e\u000eort goes into every gesture\u00a0beneath the apparent naturalness.\u201d This statement\u00a0is from historian Laura de Mello e Souza,\u00a0a Full Professor of Modern History at the University\u00a0of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP). Laura has recently\u00a0published a biography of the conspiracy poet\u00a0Cl\u00e1udio Manuel da Costa (Perfis Brasileiros [Brazilian\u00a0Profiles] collection, published by Companhia\u00a0das Letras) that represents a beautiful\u00a0historical entrechat from the researcher, who has\u00a0constructed a portrait of the man and the age\u00a0from minimal information about da Costa\u2019s personality.\u00a0This project was a jet\u00e9 that demanded\u00a0long searches in historical archives, a hallmark\u00a0of Laura\u2019s work. Similar to ballet, however, the\u00a0work does not reveal her e\u000eort, but rather the\u00a0beauty of the text. \u201cI come from a family of storytellers,\u201d\u00a0she explains. She was not burdened\u00a0when her teachers invariably asked, \u201cOh, so\u00a0you\u2019re the daughter of Antonio Candido and\u00a0Gilda de Mello e Souza?\u201d Laura belonged to a \u00a0family of intellectuals that was first and\u00a0foremost a family, albeit one surrounded\u00a0by books. \u201cMy relationship with my father\u00a0was always good. They are special\u00a0people. They have a good idea of their\u00a0role but are modest and have a very nice\u00a0relationship with knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before turning to history, Laura flirted\u00a0with architecture, psychology and medicine.\u00a0She united these passions in history,\u00a0adding a substantial dose of social\u00a0concern and political awareness. She was\u00a0the first person to address marginalized\u00a0people, in Desclassificados do ouro<\/em> (1983)\u00a0[The outcast], and her books maintain a\u00a0strong relationship with and an engaged\u00a0interpretation of Brazil without compromising\u00a0documentary rigor. Although\u00a0Laura says that she \u201clives\u201d between the\u00a0sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, her\u00a0work helps to explain Brazil as it is today,\u00a0including areas previously overlooked\u00a0by academics, such as religiousness and\u00a0witchcraft (discussed in O diabo e a Terra\u00a0de Santa Cruz<\/em> (1986) [The devil and the\u00a0land of Santa Cruz] and Inferno atl\u00e2ntico<\/em>
\n(1993) [Atlantic hell]). More recently, she\u00a0has considered how to write Brazil\u2019s history.\u00a0\u201cThe historian cannot cling only\u00a0to the particular. It\u2019s the history of the\u00a0forest: if we see the tree, we have to see\u00a0the forest. Otherwise, our understanding\u00a0will be impaired.\u201d Hence, her dedication\u00a0to examining empires as a way to\u00a0solve the dilemmas of the colony that\u00a0Brazil once was is an important temps
\nlev\u00e9. This e\u000eort resulted in an FAPESP supported\u00a0project, Dimens\u00f5es do imp\u00e9rio\u00a0portugu\u00eas<\/em> [Dimensions of the Portuguese\u00a0empire], which Laura coordinated, as\u00a0well as books, such as O sol e a sombra<\/em>\u00a0(2006) [The sun and the shadow]. Below\u00a0are extracts from my interview with\u00a0Laura de Mello e Souza.<\/p>\n

How did your voyage \u201cto the foreign\u00a0land that is the past\u201d begin?<\/strong>
\nI love that phrase from The Go-between by [British writer Leslie Poles] Hartley,\u00a0which I believe is a great definition\u00a0of what history is. Since I was young,\u00a0I\u2019ve had a passion for history. History\u00a0and stories. I had a dream of pursuing\u00a0medicine, which I believe is not far
\nremoved from history because of its\u00a0fascination with fragments that allow\u00a0you to reconstitute something. Medicine\u00a0doesn\u2019t seem to me to be an exact\u00a0science. We go to the doctor, and\u00a0he asks a series of questions to be able\u00a0to build a hypothesis. I think that the\u00a0historian does the same thing. We never\u00a0have direct access to the past, and,\u00a0therefore, the past is a foreign country.\u00a0It would be great if we could have\u00a0a direct line to the past, but we always\u00a0have to consider that the past has to\u00a0be looked at carefully via the traces it\u00a0has left. Time ensures that these differences\u00a0are considerable. We feel the\u00a0difference between generations, between\u00a0parents and children, so imagine\u00a0between various generations, like the\u00a0ones I deal with\u2014remote periods going\u00a0back as far as 400 years ago.\u00a0How does your way of writing history\u00a0di\u000eer from other styles?\u00a0It was heavily influenced\u00a0by my storytelling parents.\u00a0My father is a great\u00a0storyteller. But when I\u00a0went to college, that type\u00a0of history was highly discredited,\u00a0above all at USP,\u00a0where there was a predominance\u00a0of structural\u00a0history. I think that before\u00a0television, the great\u00a0media transformation,\u00a0people told many stories.\u00a0I grew up in the countryside,\u00a0where I lived with\u00a0my grandparents in a rural\u00a0environment. People\u00a0had many stories to tell.\u00a0So the history I always\u00a0liked was narrative history.\u00a0In the 1990’s, it came\u00a0back into fashion. A more\u00a0analytical history is very important. It\u00a0makes fewer mistakes, but for me, it is\u00a0less attractive. I think there\u2019s an issue\u00a0of temperament at play here. I\u2019m not\u00a0only interested because of historians. I\u00a0love anthropology\u2014above all, the classic\u00a0dissertations that are narratives. I\u00a0like the history of art and literature a\u00a0lot. So these tastes led me to another\u00a0type of history, which is perhaps more\u00a0capable of making mistakes but maintains\u00a0a stronger link to other disciplines.<\/p>\n

How did your parents influence you?
\n<\/strong>I think that the family environment is\u00a0very influential. Of course, the fact that\u00a0I grew up in a house in which the intellectual\u00a0environment was very marked\u00a0had an influence, with its conversations and\u00a0the presence of books, which I think are the\u00a0most important things. We don\u2019t read all the\u00a0books we have, but that business of dealing\u00a0with books, going to the bookcase and looking\u00a0at them\u2014it\u2019s very important. My parents were\u00a0very low profile people, so I only became aware\u00a0of the weight they carried in the university environment\u00a0when I went to college. I did not\u00a0have much of an idea. Because I grew up during\u00a0the military dictatorship, the situation was\u00a0the opposite. Having the parents I had was a bit\u00a0uncomfortable. For 10 years, we heard rumors\u00a0that my father was going to lose his position.\u00a0There was a very heavy atmosphere of insecurity,\u00a0which wasn\u2019t something I\u2019m proud of, but\u00a0belonging to that environment was rather marginal.\u00a0I then started noticing that they were respectable\u00a0and prominent people. I don\u2019t believe\u00a0they had very great expectations concerning me;\u00a0they always gave my sisters and me room to be\u00a0what we wanted to be. I even tried to drop out,\u00a0to do other things, like architecture and medicine,\u00a0but I didn\u2019t manage to. I\u2019m traumatized\u00a0about not having become a doctor.<\/p>\n

\"\"EDUARDO CESAR<\/span>You were the first researcher to deal with the\u00a0\u2018marginalized people,\u2019 and in your books, a vision\u00a0of political engagement is noticeable.<\/strong>
\nWhen I went to college, the dictatorship was\u00a0at its height. That was reflected in my work.\u00a0I think it\u2019s impossible to be otherwise, unless\u00a0you live in the stratosphere. Historians live with\u00a0their heads in the clouds a bit, particularly those\u00a0who deal with remote periods. I think that I live\u00a0with my head in the clouds more than I\u2019d like\u00a0to, but that was inevitable coming from a leftist\u00a0environment. Even people like me, who had no\u00a0vocation for political militancy, tried to write\u00a0the type of history that, in one way or another,\u00a0posed important questions for the country. I\u00a0did this with a social history on the problem of\u00a0inequality, which was an issue that was present\u00a0at the beginning of my career. I think that it\u2019s\u00a0something that marks a generation; it\u2019s an attempt\u00a0at reaching an agreement with the past\u00a0that started with Florestan Fernandes, from\u00a0the time when he worked with Roger Bastide.\u00a0I think that Brazilian historiography is now becoming\u00a0emancipated, somehow. It\u2019s opening up\u00a0a greater range of themes. My current research,\u00a0for example, which was funded by FAPESP, is on\u00a0the history of Brazil, but from a very European\u00a0perspective, trying to understand the history of\u00a0our country within the history of Europe. Nowadays,\u00a0national history makes increasingly less\u00a0sense. I\u2019m no longer very interested in national\u00a0history. One of the good aspects of globalization\u00a0is the possibility of writing total history.\u00a0What do I mean by total history? It\u2019s not just\u00a0the history of Brazil, but the history of Brazil\u00a0in relation to other histories, other contemporary\u00a0and correlated historical processes. I think\u00a0we write about national or regional history for\u00a0a thesis. It\u2019s like a young girl who, to do ballet,\u00a0must start with classical ballet, must dance on\u00a0her points, must work at the barre. Then, later,\u00a0she can deconstruct that and do modern ballet\u00a0and contemporary dance.<\/p>\n

How were you gripped by what you call the\u00a0\u201cdocument fever\u201d?<\/strong>
\nI began working with documents because I\u00a0chose a theme on which there was nothing. In\u00a0fact, I have a vocation for the abyss, for working\u00a0with topics that are practically impossible\u00a0to work with, like that book on Cl\u00e1udio Manuel\u00a0da Costa. I didn\u2019t write a biography, but I ended\u00a0up doing something that gives that idea. But\u00a0in the case of the \u2018marginalized\u2019, people said I\u00a0wasn\u2019t going to manage to write it because there\u00a0was no documentation. And there really wasn\u2019t.\u00a0I worked with published documents, but the\u00a0cream of it was the handwritten documentation.\u00a0So I delved into the archives to see what there\u00a0was, and there I discovered this extraordinary\u00a0documentation that had been largely ignored\u00a0before I started working on it, and that gave me a\u00a0possible view of this socially marginalized layer\u00a0of society. It was the same thing in the case of\u00a0witchcraft; I had no alternative because there\u00a0was no work on the subject, so I had to read\u00a0the Inquisition proceedings. It was like fishing\u00a0with a rod: you threw in the line and didn\u2019t\u00a0know whether you were going to catch a fish.\u00a0Then, before I realized it, I\u2019d become an archive\u00a0historian. I\u2019m an archive historian, I continue\u00a0being one, and I won\u2019t ever give up being one.\u00a0I don\u2019t know how to work if I don\u2019t work with\u00a0manuscripts; it\u2019s what gives me great pleasure.<\/p>\n

Is it in this sense that you say that the function\u00a0<\/strong>of the <\/strong>historian<\/strong> has more to do with understanding\u00a0<\/strong>than explaining?<\/strong>
\nI think that understanding comes from what\u00a0you mentioned at the beginning; the past is a\u00a0foreign land, so it\u2019s di\u00a9cult for us to explain it.\u00a0We have to understand it. On the other hand, it\u2019s\u00a0necessary to look for an explanation. There\u2019s a\u00a0margin of explanation we can\u2019t set aside; if we\u00a0do, we can\u2019t understand it. There\u2019s a margin of\u00a0generalization we have to establish as well; if\u00a0we don\u2019t, we can\u2019t convey the message.<\/p>\n

How does this generalization work in the case<\/strong>\u00a0of Brazil?<\/strong>
\nIf we\u2019re being optimistic, I think Brazil really\u00a0is a country of the future because, good or \u00a0bad, we\u2019re already dealing with an issue\u00a0that is being posed in Europe now,\u00a0namely, miscegenation. The problem of\u00a0the blacks in Brazil is still very serious.\u00a0People of African descent continue to\u00a0be heavily excluded socially. But, in any\u00a0event, Brazil is a country that could not\u00a0have existed without immigration, that\u00a0could not have existed without slavery,\u00a0and that exploited the indigenous labor\u00a0force atrociously. Even so, there are\u00a0Indians trying to have an increasingly\u00a0more active say in things. So Brazil is a\u00a0phenomenon that has been stitching together\u00a0its cultural diversity since it was\u00a0colonized. It couldn\u2019t have maintained\u00a0its unity if it hadn\u2019t stitched together its\u00a0cultural diversity. We\u2019re the only country\u00a0in the Americas that is authentically\u00a0multi-cultural to the extent that\u00a0it is experienced. It\u2019s not survival\u2014it\u2019s\u00a0a living experience. There\u2019s no Indian\u00a0survival, no survival of Africa here; it\u2019s\u00a0all a living experience. It forms part of\u00a0our own experience, our DNA, which\u00a0is basically indigenous. On the other\u00a0hand, I think that it\u2019s a false issue to\u00a0give up our European tradition because\u00a0we\u2019re also Europeans. So I think that\u00a0nationalism, precisely, and the need to\u00a0create a body of intellectuals and original\u00a0thinking for a young country meant\u00a0that a series of explanations were constructed\u00a0that go against the grain of this\u00a0idea of continuity, which was always\u00a0sold as a reactionary idea. But it may\u00a0not be. I think that the history I wrote,\u00a0including that biography of Cl\u00e1udio, is\u00a0always faced with the dilemma that S\u00e9rgio\u00a0Buarque de Holanda expressed so\u00a0clearly when he said, \u201cWe\u2019re homeless\u00a0outcasts in our own land,\u201d in Ra\u00edzes do\u00a0Brasil<\/em> [Roots of Brazil].<\/p>\n

\"\"EDUARDO CESAR<\/span>The evils of Brazil are often attributed\u00a0to our colonization, the \u201cheritage\u00a0of the deportees.\u201d How do you\u00a0view this?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s all true, and it\u2019s not. It\u2019s true because\u00a0all this really happened. The\u00a0most dramatic thing isn\u2019t being a land\u00a0of deportees, because they all were: the\u00a0USA, Australia, etc. The most terrible\u00a0thing is that we had slavery until 1888\u00a0because that indeed generated virtually\u00a0irreversible social dynamics. So\u00a0the problem is not colonization, but\u00a0slavery. Were we the only country to\u00a0have slavery? No. But we\u2019re the one\u00a0that dealt with the issue of slavery in\u00a0the most perverse way. When a child\u00a0today goes into his room, takes o\u000e his\u00a0clothes and leaves his pants in a mess\u00a0on the floor just the way they came o\u000e his body, I say, \u201cThat\u2019s a slave-based\u00a0society.\u201d This disqualification of less\u00a0qualified, less highly regarded work,\u00a0for example, which exists to this day in\u00a0Brazil. All workers are basically equal;\u00a0we have to believe that. That\u2019s not the\u00a0way it is in Brazil. Now, to attribute all\u00a0the ills to colonization has to do with\u00a0the afirmation of independence. Because Brazil underwent a different\u00a0independence process, with a slave\u00a0Empire, when the Republic arrived,\u00a0those early republican generations had\u00a0to attribute Brazil\u2019s ills to Portuguese\u00a0colonization. I don\u2019t think that explains\u00a0very much. That is why historians are\u00a0always studying slavery; it explains\u00a0things to us better.<\/p>\n

Along with slavery, do the elite also\u00a0help us understand Brazil?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know if the Brazilian elite are\u00a0worse than any other elite. They are\u00a0more stubborn concerning a certain\u00a0type of privilege, depending on the\u00a0region in Brazil. Look, the S\u00e3o Paulo\u00a0elite are completely di\u000eerent from the\u00a0northeastern elite. At least, I\u2019m from\u00a0S\u00e3o Paulo, and I see that the S\u00e3o Paulo\u00a0elite today are no longer what they were\u00a0at the time of my grandparents. They\u2019re\u00a0di\u000eerent, but they reproduce the vices\u00a0of the former elite. It seems to me that in the northeast and the north of Brazil,\u00a0they\u2019re the same. I mean, we find the\u00a0same names in the northeast and the\u00a0north of Brazil. Not in the south. Who\u00a0are the elite in S\u00e3o Paulo today? They\u2019re\u00a0no longer the Paes\u00a0Leme, etc. Where\u00a0are these people?\u00a0They no longer exist.\u00a0So the elite turn\u00a0over much faster in\u00a0S\u00e3o Paulo and in the\u00a0south in general because\u00a0of capitalistic\u00a0development,\u00a0of course. It turns\u00a0over far faster because\u00a0of the idea\u00a0that society is open\u00a0to anyone who has\u00a0money and knows\u00a0what to do or who\u00a0has talent. I think\u00a0that the elite are\u00a0equally terrible in\u00a0the United States,\u00a0like the Brazilian\u00a0elite. I think that what characterizes\u00a0the Brazilian elite is a great reluctance\u00a0to give up their privileges. This has to\u00a0do with the type of relationship that\u00a0they established with the state machinery\u00a0throughout history. The fact is that\u00a0the Portuguese state is such an old one\u00a0and that from the seventeenth century,\u00a0it really opened up its co\u000eers to its elite.\u00a0I mean, the Portuguese nobility, especially\u00a0in the eighteenth century, was a\u00a0nobility that depended either on service\u00a0to the Empire or money from the king\u2019s\u00a0purse for its upkeep. Far more immediate\u00a0attention was paid by the state to the\u00a0needs of the dominant players, it seems\u00a0to me. But I think it is a bit risky to say
\nwhat I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had great intellectuals that\u00a0thought about history holistically.\u00a0What about today?<\/strong>
\nThis is something that worries me a lot,\u00a0more so every day. If someone asks me,\u00a0\u201cLaura, I want to read a general history\u00a0of Brazil, what should I read?\u201d I have\u00a0nothing to tell them. The last great history\u00a0of Brazil is Hist\u00f3ria geral da civiliza\u00e7\u00e3o\u00a0brasileira<\/em> [General history of Brazilian\u00a0civilization] by S\u00e9rgio Buarque de\u00a0Holanda. This is a very serious problem\u00a0in my mind because it\u2019s a global\u00a0phenomenon, but there are certain historiographic\u00a0traditions that continue\u00a0maintaining general history. I think it\u2019s\u00a0sorely lacking. When we want to have a\u00a0particular general perspective of Brazil,\u00a0we go back to Caio Prado J\u00fanior or S\u00e9rgio\u00a0Buarque de Holanda or to Capistrano\u00a0de Abreu. No book written today\u00a0and during the years after the arrival\u00a0of the royal family will be better than\u00a0Dom Jo\u00e3o VI no Brasil<\/em> [Dom Jo\u00e3o VI in\u00a0Brazil] by Oliveira Lima. I think we\u2019ve\u00a0jumped stages. We\u2019ve glossed over a\u00a0particular stage of historical knowledge,\u00a0which in Europe was very well\u00a0founded, which is historicity, the mass\u00a0publication of document collections, the\u00a0exhaustive description of certain ages.\u00a0We skipped a stage and went straight\u00a0into essayism, into university history,\u00a0which demands that you focus on portions\u00a0of things. Today, Brazilian historiographic\u00a0production is good\u2014according\u00a0to FAPESP, in the humanities, it is\u00a0the most prolific\u2014with some absolutely\u00a0extraordinary books, but it always has a\u00a0very narrow focus. This has to do with\u00a0the crisis of paradigms: that it\u2019s impossible\u00a0to explain, that it\u2019s impossible to\u00a0construct general explanations, that\u00a0to understand a general phenomenon\u00a0you always have to start from a specific\u00a0angle, the impact of micro-history, of\u00a0post-modernism…. I think we need to\u00a0get over this phase, that it\u2019s possible to\u00a0carry out monographic studies but also\u00a0to provide general explanations\u2014summaries\u00a0that are more all-embracing.\u00a0What we\u2019re seeing today is that there\u2019s\u00a0an audience that\u2019s very hungry for history\u00a0books, and it isn\u2019t always being\u00a0served by professional historians but\u00a0by individuals who do research without\u00a0having any particular specialization.\u00a0Those who have a more specific\u00a0background but who chose to sell a lot\u00a0generally reproduce; they don\u2019t innovate.\u00a0They do something that\u2019s correct,\u00a0but they don\u2019t innovate. Those who are\u00a0innovating are not writing for the general\u00a0public. The next step needs to be\u00a0taken by those who are doing original\u00a0research and who should start writing\u00a0for the general public.<\/p>\n

You often criticize young historians\u00a0who discard the classics merely to look\u00a0for new things. Why?
\n<\/strong>When I was young, I was also someone\u00a0who liked new things. I thought I was\u00a0going to invent the wheel. Now, there\u00a0are certain problems that are false and\u00a0are attractive merely because they\u2019re\u00a0new. Students come up to me and say,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve read everything. It\u2019s all rubbish.\u00a0No one is saying what I want to say.\u201d I\u00a0say to them \u201cSo, explain to me why it\u2019s\u00a0rubbish.\u201d Then, in the end, what rubbish\u00a0remains is not such rubbish after\u00a0all, and that great new aspect they wanted\u00a0to talk about is not so new after all.<\/p>\n

Another important point is the absence<\/strong>\u00a0of intellectuals acting in the<\/strong>\u00a0public sphere.<\/strong>
\nI view this with great sadness. I think\u00a0this is a very serious problem. It\u2019s one\u00a0of the most serious signs of this crisis\u00a0of paradigms. I think that it must have\u00a0been very good for those generations\u00a0that had absolute certainty and truths.\u00a0I have none, and this is very disheartening.\u00a0On the other hand, it\u2019s provocative;\u00a0it leads to an environment of creative\u00a0freedom. Our university production is\u00a0very good, but there are no great intellectuals\u00a0any more like there used to be,\u00a0and that is a loss. I think it\u2019s a very big\u00a0loss. I was very impressed in 1998, when\u00a0I was a professor at the University of\u00a0Texas, and I read The New York Times\u00a0and found that the whole of the front\u00a0page was a photo of the co\u00a9n of Octavio\u00a0Paz with a headline that read, \u201cThe\u00a0greatest thinker in the Americas has\u00a0died.\u201d Perhaps he was the last great Latin\u00a0American thinker. Now there aren\u2019t\u00a0any. I think it has something to do with\u00a0the fact that no one has the courage and\u00a0frankness to produce explanations any\u00a0longer. When I suggest The Labyrinth of\u00a0Solitude, one of the most extraordinary\u00a0books I\u2019ve ever read, to my students,\u00a0they complain, \u201cNo, for God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t\u00a0give me Octavio Paz; he\u2019s a reactionary,\u00a0fiction.\u201d It would be the same thing if I\u00a0were to take Ra\u00edzes do Brasil<\/em> [Roots of\u00a0Brazil]. Caio Prado J\u00fanior is one of the\u00a0biggest whipping boys of my generation.\u00a0Several colleagues say they no longer\u00a0talk about Caio Prado J\u00fanior in their\u00a0lessons because he\u2019s racist. The life of a\u00a0university professor can be thoroughly\u00a0dry and uninteresting. Very much so. I\u00a0struggle desperately for mine not to be.\u00a0But if I were strictly a university professor\u00a0as I should be, my life would be\u00a0no fun at all because I have to write a\u00a0load of reports, I have to write a lot of\u00a0opinions for Capes, CNPq, FAPESP, I\u00a0have to represent my area at Capes, the CNPq,\u00a0at FAPESP, as I have done, because I have to\u00a0supervise scientific initiation courses, master\u2019s\u00a0degree courses, PhDs, post-doctoral studies. I\u00a0have to go to I don\u2019t know how many congresses\u00a0a year to be able to be recognized by the agencies\u00a0that fund research. This creates a certain\u00a0distortion. I\u2019ve seen opinions saying that suchand-such a high-level historian only publishes\u00a0books; he doesn\u2019t publish articles, and it\u2019s not\u00a0good that he only publishes books. The fact that\u00a0we\u2019ve become professional takes us out of public\u00a0life. Today, people who work in universities,\u00a0with a few exceptions, are not involved in public\u00a0life. Those who are heavily involved in public\u00a0life end up investigating less.<\/p>\n

Why a book on Cl\u00e1udio Manuel da Costa?<\/strong>
\nHe was a man divided, a man torn, who felt that\u00a0who he was and what he did were not aligned\u00a0with the world of the kingdom, but he was also\u00a0unable to take a step outside it. So I think that\u00a0he\u2019s very typical of the Portuguese-Brazilian\u00a0world before independence, when it was neither\u00a0one thing nor the other. There\u2019s a phrase\u00a0in his confession in which he says that despite\u00a0having said everything that he did, he does not\u00a0think that informers are any better than those\u00a0who fought, than those who were informed\u00a0against. In other words, he says, \u201cI informed,\u00a0but I\u2019m meaner and smaller than those who\u00a0conspired against the king.\u201d It\u2019s one of the elements\u00a0that makes me believe he killed himself,\u00a0that he was sick about what he had done. It was\u00a0also important to review the Minas Conspiracy\u00a0and how, towards the end, they were putting on\u00a0the brakes. They didn\u2019t want anymore. But the\u00a0movement was headed toward generalized dissemination\u00a0and a more radical path than it had\u00a0been initially. For years, they used to go and say\u00a0to the governor, \u201cOh my God, it could be better.\u00a0And what if we had more representation? And\u00a0what if Portuguese-Brazilians were listened to\u00a0more?\u201d And the governors [responded], \u201cNo, I\u00a0don\u2019t think you\u2019re right.\u201d Then, the governors\u00a0wrote to the Overseas Council, \u201cLook at the\u00a0things that are going on. You\u2019re seeing it from\u00a0afar, while here, close to things, they aren\u2019t as\u00a0you think they are from there. I\u2019m here, and\u00a0I\u2019m seeing things. There\u2019s no way you can apply\u00a0things the way you\u2019re ordering them to be\u00a0applied.\u201d So the issue of trying to reach a compromise\u00a0to maintain colonial domination went\u00a0hand-in-hand with the desire for \u201clight\u201d participation\u00a0on the part of the elite. It was in this\u00a0type of situation that the governor was changed\u00a0in 1784, and this special group decided to see if\u00a0things really could be changed, perhaps even\u00a0declare independence. I think that in the middle\u00a0of the process, everything shifted into another\u00a0type of movement, one that was more\u00a0adversarial, more popular in character, more\u00a0demanding, and that\u2019s when the literary men\u00a0pulled the handbrake.<\/p>\n

And the person of Tiradentes?<\/strong>
\nIf someone is justly entitled to be called the hero\u00a0of the Republic, I think he is it. I think he was\u00a0really a great agitator; he was a political agitator.\u00a0He was irresponsible and crazy, like all political\u00a0agitators. He was a political agitator, and that\u2019s\u00a0when he began to believe that things could really\u00a0fall into place and become an emancipation\u00a0movement, at least in the region. Nowadays,\u00a0there are various studies that suggest that there\u00a0was an attempt at organization between S\u00e3o\u00a0Paulo, Rio and Minas, that the elite were trying\u00a0to defend the economic interests that were\u00a0heavily tied to these three regions.<\/p>\n

You said that you live between the sixteenth\u00a0and eighteenth centuries. What\u2019s your view of\u00a0Brazil today?
\n<\/strong>I have a very positive view of Brazil today, and I\u00a0think we all have reasons for this because I think\u00a0we\u2019re the only country in the Americas with its\u00a0own project, despite what the press says, that\u00a0we are always on the brink of the abyss and that\u00a0no one has any project whatsoever. I think Fernando\u00a0Henrique and Lula produced two very\u00a0important governments. I think that everything\u00a0began with the FHC government because he was\u00a0Fernando Henrique, a respected man, a great\u00a0intellectual at a moment of enormous international\u00a0mediocrity. If we think about who the\u00a0political leaders in the world are, we can wipe\u00a0the floor with them, whether it\u2019s with Fernando\u00a0Henrique, Lula, or Dilma. But the problems in\u00a0Brazil are still the same, though on a smaller\u00a0scale now because of the distribution of income\u00a0and education. I think the biggest challenge for\u00a0Brazil is the challenge of education, quality public\u00a0education for elementary schools because\u00a0nowadays, for better or for worse, we have a\u00a0competent university system. The challenge going\u00a0forward is education. I think even health is\u00a0a consequence of education; as education gets\u00a0into gear, health goes along with it. There is,\u00a0however, the question of income distribution.\u00a0There we go back to the issue of the Brazilian\u00a0elite. There has to be greater motivation, greater\u00a0participation, and that\u2019s where there\u2019s a lack of\u00a0great public figures, which unfortunately we no\u00a0longer have. There\u2019s a lack of great causes, great\u00a0standards. But I\u2019m optimistic about Brazil and\u00a0pessimistic about the world because I think the\u00a0world\u2019s coming to an end. In the world of today,\u00a0I view Brazil with optimism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a lack of innovative researchers able to reach the general public","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[241],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-28934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28934"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}