In an Extraordinary University Assembly held this Thursday (20), Unicamp awarded the title of Professor Emeritus to literary critic Roberto Schwarz. According to the opinion of the special committee that approved the title, Schwarz is responsible for an immense contribution to Human Sciences in general, but in particular to literary studies in Brazil.
The Commission recalls that Schwarz had a decisive role in structuring the Department of Literary Theory at Unicamp and stands out as one of the few intellectuals who managed to circulate and influence outside the restricted circle of academic specialty, stimulating debates also in Political Science, Philosophy, Historiography and Sociology .
“The most notable aspect of Schwarz's work is the constant invitation to dialogue between the various disciplines of the Human and Social Sciences, in a university context in which the compartmentalization of knowledge has become the rule”, says the opinion of the committee, formed by professors Mário Orlando Seligmann Silva (president), Jorge Mattos Brito de Almeida, Paulo Eduardo Arantes and Roberto Vecchi.
“His contributions to literary criticism – nationally and internationally – and to the strengthening of research in Human Sciences at Unicamp are undeniable”, completes the opinion. Professor of the Department of Literary Theory at Unicamp Alfredo Barbosa de Melo was chosen to be the honoree's godfather. He recalled that, generally, the godfather is a colleague, a former student, a very close friend, someone who has followed the honoree's academic life for decades, but admits that this did not happen with him.
Melo said that professor Roberto Schwarz retired from Unicamp in 1992, when he was just 12 years old and still living in the Northeast. He would only enter the Department of Literary Theory 20 years after Roberto Schwarz left. “But, as the honoree is, without a doubt, one of the great dialectical thinkers of contemporary times and, as such, a fine analyst of literary forms, which travel and detach themselves from their initial assumptions, this greeting speech outside the traditional costume, made by an unknown colleague, from another generation, might have some interest”, assessed Alfredo Melo.
For him, this sponsorship shows that the recognition of a brilliant intellectual trajectory goes beyond the scope of the memory of friends and colleagues. It also shows that Schwarz's work continues to awaken reflections, questions and goes through the years with great vitality. “Furthermore, being godfather to one of the biggest critics of Brazil’s favor relations is not for everyone”, joked Professor Alfredo.
Fertile intellectual environment
Roberto Schwarz was born in Vienna in 1938. The son of left-wing Jewish intellectuals, his family had to leave Austria due to the country's annexation by Nazi Germany. Installed in Brazil, Schwarz grew up in a fertile intellectual environment, supported by Anatol Rosenfeld, a German critic and theorist, a family friend, who also migrated to Brazil fleeing Nazi persecution. Rosenfeld's influence made him choose the Social Sciences course at USP to begin his scientific career.
In Social Sciences, he participated in the meetings of the Seminário d'O Capital, a group that brought together important names, such as José Arthur Gianotti, Fernando Novais, Paul Singer, Octávio Ianni, Fernando Henrique and Ruth Cardoso. In it, Schwarz came into contact with the Marxist ideas that would form the basis of his analytical thought, at the same time that he outlined his critical vision of the national-developmentalist ideas of the left at the time.
While still studying Social Sciences, contact with Antonio Candido led him to forays into literature through collaborations with literary supplements for newspapers, such as Última Hora and O Estado de S. Paulo, and to the decision to pursue a master's degree in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature at Yale University, in the United States. Upon returning to Brazil, he began teaching Literary Theory at USP in 1963. His doctorate in Latin American Studies was completed at the Paris III University - Sorbonne during his period of exile in France, due to the repression of the Military Dictatorship in the country.
In 1978, Schwarz was one of the first professors to join the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp, a unit founded in 1977 after the dismemberment of the then Linguistics Department of the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), with Antonio Candido at the direction. The professor remained at the institute until 1992, the year of his retirement, contributing significantly to the strengthening of human sciences at the university and to the development of a critical perspective on literature, culture and social reality.
Rich symbolism
Director of the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp, professor Jefferson Cano said that participating in the tribute to Schwarz is an “out of the ordinary” honor. “For me, it is an honor to represent IEL in a ceremony of this nature, which seems to me to be full of rich symbolism for our institutional life,” he said.
Professor Cano recalled that Unicamp's statutes recommend that the title of professor emeritus must be given to professors who have retired and definitively withdrawn from teaching activities. “But I see this item in the statute as a kind of irony, because we remember that characters like Professor Schwarz never stopped being part of our daily lives. It doesn't matter how long ago he withdrew. Professor Schwarz has perhaps been one of the most constant presences at IEL in recent years”, said the director.
Contributions at national and international level
The rector of Unicamp, professor Antonio Meirelles, said that Roberto Schwarz took Unicamp's contribution to research in Human Sciences to national and international levels. “Professor Roberto Schwarz played a crucial role in promoting research in Human Sciences and stood out as a first-rate intellectual in the debate on social and aesthetic issues. It took, without a shadow of a doubt, our institution – and our contribution as an institution – to the country and the world”, said the rector.
Good surprise
“It is with great joy that I receive this distinction. For an octogenarian, retired for decades, it is still a good surprise”, said Roberto Schwarz, who received the honor alongside his wife Grecia De La Sobera. “The real honoree in this ceremony, if I'm not mistaken, is a line of literary studies, with a relatively unique character, in which aesthetic reflection and social reflection go hand in hand. Or rather, they get married in a positive way,” he said.
“The innovative combination of formalist criticism, historical research, class analysis, comparatism and interpretation of Brazil was the arrival point, as we know, of the work of Antônio Candido, the creator of our Institute and certainly the greatest Brazilian critic”, he continued he. “Within my possibilities and, with a good number of teachers and writers from the following generations, I tried to be inspired by this line of study”, summarized Professor Schwarz.
Out of place ideas
Roberto Schwarz's critical thinking regarding literature and culture follows Antonio Candido's perspective by including literary analysis in the keys to reading socio-historical reality. For thinkers, there is no dichotomy between the aesthetic and formal aspects of a literary work and its historical, social and political context. On the contrary, the analyzes they make place literary style as revealing the social structure in which the work is inserted.
Based on this idea, Schwarz reflects on an incompatibility between the formation of the Brazilian novel, a literary genre guided by the liberal ideals of the European 19th century, and the structure of Brazilian society, patriarchal and slave-based. This disconnect is presented in Ideas out of place, an essay published in his book To the winner, the potatoes, from 1977, in which he applies this vision to the analysis of the works of José de Alencar and the first novels of Machado de Assis.
His dedication to the works of Machado de Assis is the highlight of his career. Through his studies, Schwarz inaugurates a new interpretation of the Machado style. Until then, the irony and innovative narrative style of works such as Posthumous Memories of Brás Cubas as aspects that deviated from the common characteristics of the national novel, associating Machado with the English style. In Schwarz's view, these formal aspects and the dubious character of characters like Brás Cubas reveal the duality that existed in Brazil at the time, which combined aspirations for modernity with a social structure founded on slavery. The reflections on Machado were compiled in A Master on the Periphery of CapitalismOf 1990.
Schwarz's thoughts are present in a vast production of poems, essays and criticisms, published not only in books and scientific journals, but also in collaborations with newspapers and widely circulated supplements. His work confirms the vocation of the new Professor Emeritus to contribute, as a public intellectual, to the construction of a society with more knowledge and the ability to critically read reality.
