Authors of Ourselves

The construction of the Brazilian intellectual in the 21st century

Abstract

The role of the intellectual is linked, in various ways, to public life, where public debate prevails. They can hardly speak for themselves, as their vocation is linked to the space of social construction, which is why their relationship with the city is tense. As a recent figure among us, the intellectual plays the role of someone who questions the world and, at the same time, must be questioned for the role he plays. Hence the question of who the intellectuals who represent us are. In this article, I question the intellectual triad of 1943 - Gilberto Freire, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Caio Prado Júnior - as candidates for intellectuals among us. First, I analyze the role of the interpreters of Brazil and then I explain some elements about the coherence of this interpretation. All this in order to answer the question: why has this triad been presented since the 1940s as “the interpreters” of Brazil? What does this say about our cultural and intellectual identity?