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The discourse of sexual excess as a hallmark of Brazilianness: revisiting Brazilian social thinking in the 1920s and 1930s* * This article was extracted from my PhD dissertation, The political regulation of sexuality within the family by Brazilian medical knowledge and institutions (1838-1940), defended in the Postgraduate Program in Public Health at the Social Medicine Institute of Rio de Janeiro State University (IMS/UERJ) in 2010.

The objective of this article is to analyze the discourse of sexual excess produced by Brazilian social thinking in the 1920s and 1930s and its dialog with the medical discourse at the time. Inspired by Foucault, it is within the field of the history of knowledge and is supported by sociology and medical documents from the period in question.Within the framework of the twentieth century re-codification of the imagery of Brazilianness, the topic of sexual excess was revisited by local thinkers in the field of sociology and seen either as disturbing the national civilizing project, or as a trait that should be seen in a positive light because it permitted the cultural hybridization of its sources of identity.

sexual excess; miscegenation; Brazilian social thinking; Casa-grande e senzala; Brazilianness


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