EDITORIAL
IN HIS OPENING ARTICLE FOR THE FIRST issue of the Filosofia, Ciências e Letras (1936) periodical, Paul Arbousse-Bastide, states that " It is lovely to watch the birth of a university " . Going through the pages of this inaugural publication, the reader can sense hope nearing a euphoric state. It was the feeling of the novel that was the keynote of the views expressed about the university that had been officially created two years before.
If we take a closer look at the core of this novelty, that so enchanted a young foreign professor, who was here on a cultural mission, we are soon faced with the assertion that, also in Brazil, the wind of university spirit had, finally, reached our shores. But, how to define it? One speaks chiefly of cooperation, when not of intelectual communion among scholars of different areas, matrix of what later would be known as interdisciplinarity.
The aspiration to overcome a certain isolation in which the great professional schools lived Law, Politechnic, Medicine , nurseries of our literate and scientific culture until that moment, was in the air.
I believe this desire to expand horizons and abolish frontiers in the various spheres of knowledge was the most powerful stimulant of a high cultural policy initiative, that involved the paulista administration at the beginning of the thirties.
As to the other policy, the one based on the power of the state oligarchies, while moved by the failure of 1932, it will, doubtless, have worked as a groupal motivation. However, this issue is not worth going beyond the biographic chronicles of some of the public men in action at the time. If it is true that the great national turmoil started by the revolution of 1930 inspired concern to the local patriarchy, making it seriously think about the importance of forming " new Bandeirante elites", it is also true that the foundation of the University of São Paulo in 1934 and, at the same time, the creation of a School of Humanities and Basic Sciences the Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras would change and prevail over its initial design. In a few years, that provincial ideological restlesness gradually lost weight and historical sense; on the other hand, the scope of the founders' cultural proposals improved considerably.
Regarding the process through the prism of its socio-economic origins, instead of the coffee palantation burgeoisie, it was the offsprings of the middle class that flocked in increasing numbers into the classes of the recently created college and of the university in general. It was the phenomenon of the democratization of superior education, parallel to the increasing urbanization going on all aver the country, in the years before and after the second World War. This social differenciation of the university students did not have any relationship with any project of forming a state leading elite. On the contrary, it was part of the same national modernization project, coming from the 30 's, that aimed at a mental teansformation of a Brazil recently emerging from the Old Republic.
Well, it is precisely the map of these cultural changes seen from the perspective of the new academe that the present number of Estudos Avançados has in mind to delineate.
The task was enormous, so much so that, from the beginning, options and cuts were imposed. When the Editorial Board of the periodical took to themselves the task of celebrating USP 's 60th aniversary, the first question they asked themselves was: should it be a chronicle of the origins or a balance of the state of the eart? Consulting senior members of the area of Human and Natural Sciences (the precious help of Maria Laura Pereira de Queiroz and Crodowaldo Pavan )they gave us the answer: When in doubt, take both solutions, once they do not exclude each other... Having taken this decision, the job of collecting and ordering data would duplicate, but a rewarding result was expected. Now that the work is ready, it is for the Uspian community and the society that supports it to judge the results.
The basic proposal was to collect and arrange information related to the studies of Humanities and Basic Sciences since the foundation of the university in 1934. It is never too much to remind one that the incentive to basic research was the great contribution brought over by foreign professors, hired by USP since the year of its creation. Many of them started a following and left disciples who, on their turn, taught new generations of scholars, some of which are still active in the Institution.
This option led us to center the search for data in the subject matters taught at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, conceived from the start as the mater cell of the new university system, since in its labs, libraries and class-rooms one could do "pure" humanistic and scientific research, that is, science unatached to any immediate professional application . Even the graduation of school teachers was seen, at the time, as a beneficial but secondary effect of the new project and not as a priority aim, that was decidedly scientific or humanistic broadly speaking. It was certainly the economic hardship of the sudents that gave a professional profile to many of the new courses of the Faculdade de Filosofia.
After the university reform of '69 and '70, some of the departments of the original Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras became Institutes or independent Colleges. We tried to follow the growth of the new units: the Instituto de Matemática e Estatística (Institute of Mathematics and Statistics), the Instituto de Física (the Institute of Physics), the Instituto de Química (the Institute of Chemistry), the Instituto de Biociências (the Institute of Bio-Sciences), the Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (the Institute of Biomedical Sciences), the Instituto de Geociências (the Institute of Geosciences), the Instituto de Astronomia e Geofísica (the Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics), the Instituto de Psicologia (the Institute of Psychology) the Faculdade de Educação (the School of Education)... all of them units that are heirs not only to the pure research tradition, that had been consolidated in the matrix, but also to the more pragmatic aspirations that motivated a great part of the students in search of a profession. Actually, this bivalance, that may be structural, is still a hallmark of daily life in various institutions that originated from the Faculdade de Filosofia, and also of other more recent institutes, like the Escola de Comunicações e Artes (School of Arts and Communication), the Institutos de Matemática, de Física e de Química (Institutes of Mathematics, of Physics and of Chemistry) of São Carlos, the Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (the College of Phylosophy, Sciences and Letters) of Ribeirão Preto. In the case of the specialized institutes and of the museums, research tends to be hegemonic.
The division adopted (USP after '34) does not mean at all that one should ignore the excellent research nuclei already existing in the state of São Paulo prior to the foundation of the university. Science historians in Brazil know the importance of biology studies at the School of Medicine (Dr. Arnaldo's House), at the Museu Paulista, at the Insitituto Biológico, at the Instituto Butantan, at the Instituto Bacteriológico de São Paulo (now Adolfo Lutz), and at some disciplines of the Escola Superior de Agronomia Luiz de Queiroz, where science, both pure and applied, blended harmoniously. As to the updating in the field of Mathematics and Physics, one must emphasize the tradition that the Escola Politécnica, whose periodical Revista is testimony of a notable scientific zeal, left us. Finally, when one talks of phylosophical and political culture in São Paulo, the institution that stands out among all others is the Faculdade de Direito (the Law School) do Largo de São Francisco, whose first courses go back to 1827.
Our focus though has fallen directly on those units of USP that, since its installment, have taken upon themselves as a central aim the growth of humanities and basic sciences.
***
For this number, both objects and subjects were taken into consideration. A memoir of the "founding fathers", be they foreign or Brazilian, preceeds the list of courses and schools.
In order to describe the origins, our procedure was twofold in complementary ways: we published the profiles of illustrious professors and interviewed some older colleagues, who had longer familiarity with the graduates of their fields. The profiles and the statements, when read in sequence, show a very lively panorama of the heyday of each discipline.
As to the interviews, it must be pointed out that some of them have already been published in back numbers of Estudos Avançados, so that it did not seem right to have them again in this issue.
To get the list of the present research lines, generally undertaken at the graduate level, we consulted colleagues of the various departments. The texts that bear a signature are of the authors ' entire responsibility In order to avoid omissions or slips, we asked all informants not to mention names of those professors who are still active. This norm was, generally, followed.
Besides the objective information, we also gathered distinct view-points about the functions and meaning of a university that is so all encompassing as USP. This is the role of the opening texts written by its President, Professor Flávio Fava de Moraes, and by Professor Miguel Reale, who held the post twice, within a 20 year interval. It is actually the reason for the inclusion of essays by intellectuals in the field of cultural policy, such as Eduardo Portella and Marilena Chaui, who contribute with the salt necessary to democratic polemics.
***
The credits chapter is well nourished. The organizer had total support from the IEA direction, with Professor Umberto Giuseppe Cordani. The articulation of the whole job owes a lot to the care of the Editorial Board. Condition sine qua non for the accomplishment of the entire periodical was the daily concern of the executive editor, Marco Antônio Coelho, also responsible for the interviews and testimonies. Praiseworthy is the dedication and competence of Dario Borelli, in the material production of the work. The layout of the text and also of the cover is the exclusive merit of Fred Jordan, who has honored us with his cooperation for years now. The iconography, lavish and relevant, is due to the zeal of Miriam Moreira Leite, who has an excellent photographic memoir of the Faculdade de Filosofia.
Credits are also due to the personnel of the Coordenadoria de Comunicação Social da USP (Coordination of Social Communication of the University), for the manufacture of the periodical; also to the financial support of the Comissão de Credenciamento de Periódicos Científicos da USP, the Fundação Moinho Santista, Fapesp, CNPq, Autolatina S.A., Banco do Brasil, and Banespa.
Alfredo Bosi
Institute of Advanced Studies
September 1994*
* Tradução de Martha Steinberg.
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
23 Nov 2005 -
Date of issue
Dec 1994
