Gilda Rocha de Melo e Sousa (March 24, 1919 – December 25, 2005), also spelled Gilda Rocha de Mello e Souza, was a Brazilian philosopher, literary critic, essayist, and university professor.
Gilda de Melo e Sousa | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 24, 1919 São Paulo, Brazil |
| Died | 25 December 2005 (aged 86) São Paulo, Brazil |
| Occupation | Philosophy professor, literary critic, essayist |
| Alma mater | University of São Paulo |
| Notable works | O tupi e o alaúde: uma interpretação de Macunaíma |
Biography
editShe was born Gilda Moraes Rocha in São Paulo in 1919 and grew up in Araraquara, inland in São Paulo state.[1][2] She returned to the city of São Paulo in 1930 to attend school. In 1937, she enrolled in the University of São Paulo (USP) graduating with a bachelor's in philosophy in 1940.[1][2] She was one of the first women to attend the university.[1] While there, she studied under such notable professors as Roger Bastide, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Jean Maugüé.[1]
She then helped found the cultural magazine Clima, alongside her future husband Antonio Candido and other young intellectuals of the era.[1][2][3] In 1952, she received a doctorate in social sciences, with a thesis on 19th-century fashion, and in 1954 she became the founding director of the teaching of aesthetics at USP's Philosophy Department.[1][3] She would go on to direct the department from 1969 to 1972, a period of significant repression of academics under the military dictatorship.[1][3] In her time as an academic, she was particularly interested in studying the work of Mário de Andrade, with her publications including the central study O Tupi e o Alaúde on his Macunaíma.[1][4]
After retiring in 1973, in 1999 she was named professor emerita in the USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Humanities.[1]
She married the critic and sociologist Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza in 1943, and the couple had three children.[1][2] Gilda de Melo e Souza died in 2005, at age 86, at São Paulo's Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital.[1][2] In 2014, professor Walnice Nogueira Galvão published A palavra afiada, a collection of some of de Melo e Sousa's interviews, letters, and writings.[1][4]
Selected works
edit- O Tupi e o Alaúde: uma Interpretação de Macunaíma (1979, seminal work on the study of Macunaíma)
- Mário de Andrade, obra escogida (1979)
- Exercícios de leitura (1980)
- O espírito das roupas: a moda no século XIX (1987)
- Os melhores poemas de Mário de Andrade (editor, 2000)
- A ideia e o figurado (2005)[5]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Tadeu Arantes, José (2014-04-23). "Livro resgata escritos de Gilda de Mello e Souza". Exame (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 2016-03-23.
- ^ a b c d e "Memória: Ensaísta Gilda de Mello e Souza morre aos 86". Folha de S.Paulo (in Portuguese). 2005-12-27. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
- ^ a b c Gama, Guilherme (2021-03-18). "Da moda à filosofia, acervo conta a vida de Gilda de Mello e Souza". Jornal da USP (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2024-05-06.
- ^ a b Coli, Jorge (2014-08-05). "A fala da mestra". Teoria e Debate (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2024-05-06.
- ^ "Gild Rocha de Mello e Souza". Rede Brasileira de Mulheres Filósofas (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2024-05-06.