Discursos sobre ensino superior no jornal Folha do Oeste (1953-1973): entre a Escola de Agronomia e Veterinária e a Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras (Guarapuava, Paraná).

Abstract

The problem of this thesis is to discuss how the newspaper Folha do Oeste was constituted in a strategy of intellectual intervention, from the proposition of higher education for Guarapuava (Paraná), notably with regard to the School of Agronomy and Veterinary, and the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters, in the period between 1953 and 1973. The initial time frame is linked to the moment when the School of Agronomy and Veterinary was proposed by the newspaper owner and state deputy Antônio Lustosa de Oliveira; the final one is related to the publications dealing with the installation of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters. The general objective is to analyze the strategies promoted by Folha do Oeste in the defense of a higher education project. From this, the following specific objectives are derived: 1) to reconstitute a part of the history of Folha do Oeste in a relational way to the other local newspapers and to the field of journalism; 2) to present the way in which Folha do Oeste propagated the idea of agricultural education, notably of the School of Agronomy and Veterinary for Guarapuava, articulating the interventions of Antônio Lustosa de Oliveira, owner of this press and member of local and state politics; 3) to make explicit the strategies of Folha do Oeste in the defense of the primacy of the School of Agronomy and Veterinary and of the importance of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters. This analytical course is based on the following documents: editions of Folha do Oeste; editions of the newspapers O Guayra, O Pharol, and A Cidade; draft legislation, book by Antônio Lustosa de Oliveira and by memorialists, Book of Records of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters (1970), which are available in the collection of the Centro de Documentação e Memória de Guarapuava e Região and in the Museu Casa Benjamin C. Teixeira, in the online archives of the Paraná Legislative Assembly and the Federal Chamber of Deputies. In addition, it is based on the debates of intellectual history and intellectuals in dialogue with the sociology of intellectuals, particularly in the discussion around the political intervention of intellectuals (Gisèle Sapiro), intellectual as an agent of the cultural and the political (Pascal Ory and JeanFrançois Sirinelli) and the concepts of capital, field and habitus (Pierre Bourdieu). This research is added to other existing researches that use this newspaper as a source or object, broadening itself as it focuses on the problem of higher education. The peculiarity of our research concerns the explanation that the Folha do Oeste took a position in defense of the prevalence of agricultural and cattle-raising higher education, while engaging in favor of the School of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters. This periodical was a means of intellectual intervention, in which higher education was one of the agendas considered of great importance, by emphasizing the idea of this newspaper as a space of mediation between the interests of the groups inherited from the old ruralist families and the horizons of expectation that were sought to be legitimized as an expression of the entire city of Guarapuava and the entire western region of Paraná.