“SHE STILL HAS HER PERFUME AROUND THE ROOM”: An encounter with the personal archive of teacher Zilah Totta (1917 - 1997)

ABSTRACT

This article analyses a personal collection that represents part of Professor Zilah Totta's career. The aim was to understand her investments in these archiving practices as a production of self, following memorial impulses, with a view to combating forgetfulness, in which different temporalities and dimensions of the titular are implicated. In this encounter with the personal archive, the aim was to focus on Zilah, this woman who, without ceasing to be a teacher, occupied spaces of power in the public world and challenged a male-dominated society in different ways, re-signifying the feminine ethos of the profession. The personal collection, made up of family documents, certificates from her career, teaching materials, a book and many press cuttings, most of them from 1981 and 1982, is a testimony to the memory of a teacher, marking her existence, activities and life experiences amid the memory of teachers' associations in Rio Grande do Sul.

Keywords:
personal archive; Zilah Totta; teacher associations