Fernando de Azevedo e o conceito de Universidade (1926-1954)

Abstract

The object of this doctoral thesis is the concept of the university systematized by Fernando de Azevedo (1894-1974), one of the most representative intellectuals of the Brazilian educational context of the 20th century. The question is: how did Fernando de Azevedo develop the concept of university and what strategies did he use to convert it into a national political project and associate it with the creation of the University of São Paulo (USP)? The general objective was to analyze the concept of the university systematized by Fernando de Azevedo and his actions to implement it in the USP project (1934). The time frame for the analysis was from 1926 (launching of the survey on higher education in Brazil) to 1954 (Study published in O Estado de S. Paulo about USP to celebrate the IV centennial of the foundation of the University of São Paulo). The specific objectives, in turn, were: a) to reconstitute some facets of Fernando de Azevedo's trajectory and his relations with the political and cultural elites of São Paulo; b) to explain the concept of university systematized by Fernando de Azevedo, taking the antithetical terms to the very experience of higher education in Brazil in the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century; c) to position the experiences of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters, the Institute of Education, and the idea of scientific and disinterested research within Azevedo's concept of the university. The study is based on Reinhart Koselleck's History of concepts to analyze the concept of university for Fernando de Azevedo and its semantic changes in historicity, considering the space of experience (past events) and the horizon of expectations (future). Pierre Bourdieu's social theory is also considered, especially the concept of capitals, because of the power relations that the intellectuals established with the intellectuals of O Estado de S. Paulo. The sources selected for the research derive from his intellectual production which includes works, manifestos, conferences, orations, and speeches that the intellectual promoted. From the study carried out, it was observed that Azevedo had an intense participation in the debates and in the project of creating universities in Brazil, in tune with the principles of the newspaper led by Júlio de Mesquita Filho, also dialoguing with several authors of international reverberation. Thus, we defend the thesis that the intellectual played the role of coordinator among the political and cultural leadership, using the support of the main groups that ran São Paulo, which were associated with the Faculties of Medicine, Engineering, and Law, that integrated the press forces, especially O Estado de S. Paulo, which was controlled by Júlio de Mesquita Filho, to systematize, publicize and implement what he called the modern university. Azevedo, articulated with the intellectuals linked to the group of O Estado de S. Paulo, mobilized actions aimed at the defense and creation of a new concept of the university that would be consubstantiated in the scientific and disinterested research, in the Institute of Education and the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters.