Chronopolitics and Brazilian social thought: visions of Brazil in the early twentieth century

ABSTRACT

This article revisits a limited set of essays published between the 1910s and the 1920s, by three of the most celebrated Brazilian intellectuals of the period, namely: Alberto Torres, Oliveira Vianna, and Paulo Prado. I argue that, notwithstanding the sharp criticisms these thinkers devote to the allegedly inauthentic character of Brazil’s modernization and intellectual life, their reflections ultimately function as active vectors of the chronopolitics central to the hegemonic imagination of modernity. Within this frame of reference their works not only codify the diverse elements of the Brazilian social fabric but also assign the country a backward position in world history.

KEYWORDS:
Alberto Torres; Oliveira Vianna; Paulo Prado; Chronopolitics; Brazilian social thought