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Courtney J. Campbell

Luso-Brazilian Review, Volume 51, Number 1, 2014, pp. 157-181 (Article)

Published by University of Wisconsin Press

DOI: 10.1353/lbr.2014.0011

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/lbr/summary/v051/51.1.campbell.html

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From Mimicry to Authenticity
The Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasilieiros on the
Possibility of Brazilian Culture (1954–1960)1

Courtney J. Campbell

Este artigo visa a analisar como Roland Corbisier, Nelson Werneck Sodré,
Álvaro Vieira Pinto, Guerreiro Ramos e Roberto Campos—todos intelectuais
do Instituto Superior dos Estudos Brasileiros (ISEB)—lidaram com os con-
ceitos de cultura, alienação, mimetismo e imperialismo entre 1954 e 1960.
Para este fim, oferecemos um contexto histórico e uma análise profunda de
três ensaios que Sodré, Corbisier e Campos apresentaram sobre “Situações e
alternativas da cultura brasileira” no congresso Introdução aos problemas do
Brasil (1955). Também analisamos Consciência e realidade nacional (1960)
de Vieira Pinto, O problema nacional do Brasil (1960) de Guerreiro Ramos, e
“Situação e alternativas da cultura brasileira” de Roland Corbisier, publicado
em Formação e problema da cultura brasileira (1959). Estes textos oferecem
interpretações heterogêneas de “cultura”, permitindo uma anâlise abrangente
do desenvolvimentismo nacional brasileiro. Concluimos que o discurso ise-
biano sobre cultura e desenvolvimento nos anos 50 tem um sistema de raízes
diversificado, representando um equilíbrio entre a teoria de modernização, o
Marxismo nacional e o crescente movimento pós-­colonial. Os isebianos em-
pregaram conceitos de imperialismo, liberação, e desenvolvimento no âmbito
cultural, produzindo manifestações incipientes do que depois será conhecido
como imperialismo cultural. As idéias sobre cultura e desenvolvimento gera-
das no ISEB foram marcantes ao longo da segunda metade do século vinte
e, até hoje, continuam influenciando os movimentos sociais e o pensamento
social, tanto brasileiro quanto estrangeiro.

Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1 157

ISSN 0024-7413, © 2014 by the Board of Regents
of the University of Wisconsin System
158 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

“O meu orgulho,” Brazilian philosopher Roland Corbisier wrote, “estava

em conhecer a produção cultural européia tão bem ou melhor do que os
próprios europeus. Quando um intelectual europeu nos visitava, timbrava
em mostrar não só que falava perfeitamente a língua do visitante mas que es-
tava a par das últimas novidades, dos últimos livros editados em seu país.”2 In
1951, when Corbisier showed the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel around
the city of São Paulo and organized two conferences for him, Corbisier ad-
dressed the visitor in French.3 Yet, nine years later, when Jean-Paul Sartre
read a conference paper on colonialism to a full house at the Instituto Su-
perior de Estudos Brasileiros (ISEB) in Rio de Janeiro, Corbisier introduced
Sartre not in French, but in Portuguese.4 During the nine years that separated
Marcel and Sartre’s visits to Brazil, a desire to speak his own language as
“uma demonstração de autonomia” had replaced Corbisier’s desire to im-
press French visitors with his knowledge of their language and culture.5
Corbisier’s story is analogous to understandings of culture and develop-
ment that emerged from ISEB in the mid- to late 1950s. ISEB was created
to form, in the words of President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961), “uma
mentalidade, um espírito, uma atmosfera [sic] de inteligência para o desen-
volvimento” through the formulation of an ideology of national develop-
ment.6 Until the military dictatorship closed ISEB’s doors in 1964, diverse
intellectuals united to develop and teach classes and to publish literature on
the industrial and capitalist development of Brazil. The isebianos who exam-
ined culture and its role in national development saw cultural development
as necessary for economic development and the 1950s as a unique moment
for Brazilian cultural liberation.
In this article, I focus on how Roland Corbisier, Nelson Werneck Sodré,
Álvaro Vieira Pinto, Guerreiro Ramos and Roberto Campos struggled with
notions of culture, alienation, mimicry and imperialism from 1954 to 1960.
These intellectuals were extremely influential on the intellectual history of
Brazil (and beyond) and shared the common label of “nationalist,” but their
views on the problemas, or questions, concerning the Brazilian nation and its
development, along with the assumptions that supported these, were not ho-
mogeneous. Roland Corbisier, a philosopher, was the first Director of ISEB.
Corbisier documented his own journey from Thomist to Marxist-­Leninist
and from armchair to public intellectual, influencing generations of student
movements with his candid and eloquent writing on culture.7 Álvaro Vieira
Pinto, who replaced Corbisier in 1960, was a devout Catholic who had stud-
ied medicine and science before becoming a philosopher and moved through
differing shades of Hegelianism to Marxism. Vieira Pinto’s work on ideology
and development sketched the basic tenets of Brazilian developmentalism
for a generation of scholars. Guerreiro Ramos, a sociologist and politician,
Campbell 159

was critical of Marxist-­Leninism, considering himself postmarxist. Ramos

was not only influential in studies of sociology, but also in politics, serving
on the board of the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) and, for a short time,
in Congress. Nelson Werneck Sodré, an active military officer, was not only
Marxist, but a Communist. Sodré wrote more than thirty books on Brazil’s
history and development. Roberto Campos, son of the first Brazilian Minis-
ter of Education Francisco Campos, was a diplomat, well-known for work-
ing closely with the U.S. government in this period and during the Brazilian
military dictatorship. Campos served a number of governmental posts, from
ambassador to senator, supporting privatization, non-­intervention and the
free market economy.
Scholars have compared ISEB to business groups, international develop-
ment agencies, the Brazilian Communist Party and the Escola de Sociologia
de São Paulo.8 They have studied ISEB as a factory of ideologies and as a
special interest group, while accusing ISEB of alienating the people by speak-
ing for them, of merely representing ideas already circulating in society, of
speaking for the centers of power, and, to the contrary, of not gaining the
support of the centers of power.9 In this article, I do not intend to criticize
ISEB claims or actions, but rather to understand how isebianos explored the
relation between culture and development and the influences and reach of
their ideas.
I argue that ISEB discourse on culture and development in the 1950s rep-
resents a move toward a balance between modernization theory, national
Marxism and growing postcolonial thought. Carlos Guilherme Mota affirms
that the 1950s were a time of “consolidação de um sistema ideológico” in-
spired in the previous decade, while the 1960s were a time of “desintegração
desse sistema ideológico.”10 Toledo argues that isebianos, “Prezos a ideologias
de cunho humanista, nada mais fizeram do que reproduzir uma certa eufo-
ria desenvolvimentista que contagia ponderável parcela da intelectualidade
latino-­americana . . . durante a década de 50.”11 My argument does not di-
rectly oppose either of these statements, as I do not claim that ISEB rhetoric
is entirely exceptional in either space or time. Yet the analysis provided in
this article does not fully agree with Mota and Toledo; while I emphasize
that ISEB arguments on culture and development have a deep and extensive
root system, I also argue that it is this root system that made it exceptional,
offering a valuable window into both national and international sentiment
on culture and development in the 1950s and beyond.
Nestled among shifts of global power resulting from World War II, grow-
ing enthusiasm over the possibility of African independence and the Cuban
Revolution, rather than simply consolidating 1940s social thought on Bra-
zilian culture, ISEB’s cultural discourse combined nationalist rhetoric with
the discourse of African independence movements, nationalist Marxism and
160 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

modernization theory. ISEB writers sought to take advantage of a break in

the colonial order caused by World War II to create an autonomous Brazilian
culture and economy. Much like Corbisier’s story above, these Brazilian intel-
lectuals sought to find cultural autonomy through the creation of an authen-
tic Brazilian culture. They sought to discover a culture previously suppressed
and alienated that would liberate the Brazilian nation and guide its economic
development. In this way, isebianos applied concepts of imperialism, libera-
tion, and development to the cultural arena, producing early manifestations
of studies of cultural imperialism.

Brazilian Intellectual and Cultural Context

The final decades of the nineteenth century brought the abolition of slav-
ery, the proclamation of the Republic, and the need to define the Brazilian
people and nation. Brazilian writers attempted to describe the Brazilian na-
tion based on positivist, eugenic, and evolutionist tendencies, stressing the
importance of race (particularly mestiçagem) and environment. In this way,
according to Renato Ortiz, Brazilian intellectuals selected and combined Eu-
ropean tendencies toward the application of scientific ideas to social studies.12
The works of these writers, according to Adriana Michéle Campos Johnson,
are symptomatic of the breach in the relationship between late nineteenth-­
century notions of democracy and the early Republican government’s in-
ability to represent “the people.”13 In this way, Euclides da Cunha’s extensive
work, Rebellion in the Backlands, survives both as the emblematic account
of the Canudos rebellion/massacre and as a definition of the people that the
Brazilian nation was to represent.14
Brazilian thought in the first half of the twentieth century exhibited a
constant tension between (borrowing from Alfredo Bosi and later Mary L.
Daniels) “centrifugal and centripetal concerns.”15 In other words, Brazilian
intellectuals grappled with the desire to represent Brazilian culture and tra-
ditions while adapting European literary and philosophical tendencies. The
generation of writers coming out of the 1920s, according to Daniel Pécaut,
sought to close the gap between intellectual and politician and to “colocar
a literatura a serviço da recuperação da ‘nacionalidade’ e de fazer dela um
instrumento de transformação social e política.”16 The year 1922 saw the real-
ization of the Semana de Arte Moderna, an event that represented Brazilian
Modernism—associated with Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade and
Cândido Portinari, among others. Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto Antropó-
fago later inspired a “cannibalistic” literary movement that allowed Brazilian
writers to be Brazilian—that is, to rely on Brazilian history and folklore to
define Brazilian identity—without having to denounce “los bienes cultu­
rales de la modernidad.”17 The idea of cultural cannibalism that emerged from
Campbell 161

the Manifesto Antropófago and the Revista de Antropofagia allowed for the
consumption of thoughts, ideas, and cultures and the creation of an entirely
new Brazilian culture. As Antônio de Alcântara Machado stated in the first
issue of the Revista de Antropofagia, at the end of all of this feasting, “sobrará
um Hans Staden. Êsse Hans Staden contará aquillo de que escapou e como
os dados dêle se fará a arte próxima futura.”18 Brazilian culture, in this way,
was always regenerating, but never straying too far from its origins; it was
original, even while its cannibalism was repetitive and its food foreign. Many
of the artists and intellectuals associated with the generation of 1920 and the
Semana de Arte Moderna would later become militant in the nationalist
movement.
The 1920s also saw the rise of samba as national music and the birth of
the Northeastern regionalist movement whose members included Gilberto
Freyre, José Lins do Rego, and Manuel Bandeira.19 Freyre’s work on regional-
ism—deeply rooted in an international turn toward regional studies—soon
led to an examination of the Brazilian nation in his most notable work, the
now-­classic The Masters and the Slaves, published in 1933, that would come
to represent Brazilian common-­sense understandings of race and nation.20
This sense of cultural renovation also pervaded the political scene through
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas. Vargas dominated Brazilian politics for nearly two
decades (1930–1954), serving an impressive number of posts along the way.21
Vargas created a network of governmental institutions, pulling the country
together under a centralized national government that promoted a central-
ized Brazilian identity. During his time in power, Vargas negotiated between
elite and laborer, urban and rural, while strategically pursuing Brazilian in-
terests abroad. One of the first steps taken by Vargas in November 1930 was
to create the Ministério de Educação e Saúde Pública (MESP—it lost its “P”
in 1937). Reforms under Vargas brought education into a national system
for the first time, creating a structure for secondary, commercial and higher
education.22
The MESP also created an impressive cultural apparatus of the national
state. By January 1931, MESP was responsible for four main departments (In-
struction, Public Health, Public Assistance, and Experimental Medicine),
along with inspection agencies, museums, and libraries.23 Minister Gus-
tavo Capanema’s cultural reforms led to the declaration that most forms of
mass communications (cinema, press, and radio) were of public utility.24 In
July 1938, Capanema created the Conselho Nacional de Cultura (CNC) that
coordinated all of the new cultural activities carried out under MES. While
the CNC never carried out its formal mandate, its creation required an of-
ficial definition of cultural development that included everything from lit-
erary and scientific production, art appreciation and intellectual exchange
to humanitarian causes and physical education. Brazilian culture became
162 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

a governmental philosophy of development and the institutions created to

control it; in the words of Daryle Williams, it “reflected a keen awareness
among politicians, educators, artists, intellectuals, and everyday citizens that
managing culture could be a powerful weapon in managing Brazilianness.”25
Meanwhile, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carib-
bean of the United Nations (CEPAL), created in 1948, brought together econ-
omists from around Latin America to study the Latin American economy
and its development. CEPAL, under the supervision of Raúl Prebisch, be-
came “la fuente del pensamiento económico estructuralista latinoamericano,”
initially pushing domestic industrialization to substitute the importation of
industrialized goods.26 According to Joseph Love, CEPAL’s “understanding
of import substitution was initially one of responding to externally forced
shocks,” especially the Great Depression and World War II.27 Celso Furtado
would become the greatest proponent of the ISI model in Brazil, while Ro-
berto Campos would also serve as one of the crossover members of CEPAL
and ISEB.28 Within Brazil, CEPAL’s structuralism and emphasis on industri-
alization merged with other groups seeking national industrial development
in the early 1950s, such as the U.S.-­Brazil Joint Commision (1950–1953), the
Centro de Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo (CIESP, founded in 1928), and
CIESP’s offshoot, the Forum Roberto Simonsen (active from 1955, and be-
coming the Instituto Roberto Simonsen in 1965).29
Within this dynamic space a group of intellectuals referred to as the Ita-
tiaia group (thus named for the location of its meetings) and led by politi-
cal scientist Hélio Jaguaribe, in 1953 gained permission from the Minister of
Education, Cândido Mota Filho, to form the Instituto Brasileiro de Econo-
mia, Sociologia e Política (IBESP) and analyze, in the words of Caio Navarro
de Toledo, “todas aquelas tarefas e matérias que o moderno Estado capita­
lista é hoje incumbido de realizar.”30 IBESP, however, had limited resources
and range of action, leading to the articulation of a larger project under the
Ministério de Educação e Cultura (MEC). Decree 37.608 then formed ISEB
on July 14, 1955 under the short-lived interim administration of the Brazil-
ian President João Café Filho. It soon became the governmental think-tank
responsible for developing the ideology of national developmentalism un-
der the administration of President Juscelino Kubitschek. Founded almost
simultaneously with CEPAL, ISEB served as CEPAL’s political parallel. Ac-
cording to Luiz Carlos Bresser-­Pereira, ISEB and CEPAL “se relacionaron
entre sí” with ISEB filling in the political (and, I add, cultural) elements of
CEPAL’s economic structuralism.31
The structure of ISEB, modeled on the Escola Superior de Guerra, aimed
to maximize the dissemination of ISEB research on development. As such,
ISEB was a school, a conference center, and a publisher of original and
translated works. A Board of Trustees (Conselho Curador) of eight members
Campbell 163

serving four-year terms led the organization and was responsible for de-
cisions regarding staffing and resources. The Board of Advisors (Conselho
Consultivo), under the Board of Trustees, was composed of 50 members on
two-year terms. This council never met, but was to provide counsel to the
Board of Trustees, and included such influential names as Sérgio Buarque
de Holanda, Candido Motta Filho, Gilberto Freyre, and Heitor Villa Lobos,
among others.
The school allowed for full- and part-time students. State governors nom-
inated full-time students. Part-time students were already public servants
in some capacity nominated by the agency or organization for which they
worked. Students had to demonstrate that they performed a professional
activity related to the national question and that they had a university ed-
ucation. The school included Economy, Sociology, Politics, Philosophy and
History departments. Students dedicated the first half of coursework to the-
oretical studies and the second to discussions of issues facing the Brazilian
nation and its development. At the end of the course, students wrote a thesis
on one of these issues. In addition to regular courses, ISEB also held confer-
ences and short courses intended for a broader audience.32

The Possibility of Brazilian Culture

Sodré, Corbisier, Campos, Vieira Pinto and Guerreiro Ramos were primarily
responsible for the articulation of isebiano notions of Brazilian culture. It is
for this reason that I chose their main works on this subject for analysis in
this article. Here, I examine three articles that Sodré, Corbisier and Campos
presented on “Situações e alternativas da cultura brasileira” at the confer­
ence Introdução aos problemas do Brasil (1955). I also consider Álvaro Vieira
Pinto’s Consciência e realidade nacional (1960), Guerreiro Ramos’ O pro­
blema nacional do Brasil (1960) and Roland Corbisier’s presentation “Situ-
ação e alternativas da cultura brasileira” published in Formação e problema
da cultura brasileira (1959). Guerreiro Ramos’ article “O tema da transplan-
tação e as entelequias na interpretação sociológica no Brasil” published in
Serviço Social slightly before the formation of ISEB provides background to
debates on cultural mimicry.33 These texts offer heterogeneous interpreta-
tions of culture allowing for an analysis of the breadth of Brazilian national
developmentalism.
At conferences in 1955 and 1956, Roland Corbisier viewed culture as
embracing “à totalidade das manifestações vitais, que, em seu conjunto, ca­
racterizam e definem o povo brasileiro.”34 This explanation emphasizes the
historical elements of culture. As Corbisier states, the “formação da cultura
brasileira” is also the “formação histórica do povo brasileiro.”35 Culture, then,
is an historical process, not to be confused with a moment in time or a set
164 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

of cultural products. Sodré also expressed a process-­focused definition of

culture as “o desenvolvimento de idéias;”36 however, in Guerreiro Ramos’
definition, culture is produced by historical process and social practice. As
Guerreiro Ramos explains, culture includes “produtos materiais e não mate-
riais resultantes da atividade transformadora dos povos, mediante os quais
se exprime uma idéia interpretativa do homem e do mundo.”37 This broad
conceptualization of culture allowed Roberto Campos to include “formas de
comportamento” and Nelson Werneck Sodré to include arts, teaching and
political ideas in their definitions of culture. It also made possible a notion
of culture that, to Guerreiro Ramos, is not limited to erudition or class and is
“isento de conotação valorativa.”38
The concept of alienation was central to the arguments that Ramos, Cor-
bisier, Sodré, and Vieira Pinto provided. According to these authors, the for-
mation of Brazilian culture, having taken place within a colonial framework,
was a process of alienation that could only produce an alienated culture.
Sodré, in “Estudo histórico-­sociológico da cultura brasileira,” analyzes the
progression of Brazilian culture demonstrating that from the beginning of
the colonial project, the people were divorced from intellectuals and intellec-
tuals from the culture that they presented. This first relationship appears with
the Society of Jesus in Brazil as the only “elementos dotados de dimensão
intelectual.”39 As the Jesuits did nothing to upset the colonial structure and
were in charge of Brazilian education, Sodré identifies a “juxtaposição” in-
stead of a “fusão” between intellectual and environment, leading to an overly
theoretical erudition.40 Later the Industrial Revolution opened Brazil to free
trade, breaking “a rígida estrutura da clausura e do monopólio.”41 When po-
litical independence did take place, however, “a transformação das antigas
colônias em nações autônomas devia processar-­se com mínimo de alterações
internas, mantida a ossatura do regime econômico existente, assegurada a
permanência do sistema de produção.”42 As professions once provided by the
metropole became necessary in the former colony, the need for education
increased, producing Brazil’s first secular intellectuals. According to Sodré,
two points of view were born: those who sought solutions for Brazil “na cópia
pura e simples de modelos externos” and those who sought “uma visão obje-
tiva e realista para os problemas brasileiros.”43
The theme of mimicry and transplantation repeats throughout ISEB liter-
ature on culture. Álvaro Vieira Pinto, in the second volume of Consciência e
realidade nacional, characterizes the “alienação do saber” that Brazil suffers
as manifested through “mimetismo, transplantação, o horror aos problemas
brasileiros, o modismo metropolitano.”44 Roberto Campos, in turn, points
out the “hábito de exibir fôrmulas antes aceitas, que de repensâ-­los” and the
ability to “imitar formas de consumo, sem igual capacidade de copiar hábitos
de produção.”45
Campbell 165

While other Brazilian intellectuals criticized mimicry, these authors saw

imitation as an inevitable effect of the colonial system. Guerreiro Ramos
argues that colonialism, whether Portuguese, Spanish, French or Dutch,
inevitably leads to cultural mimicry until conditions are ripe for national
development.46 Mimicry itself was not the problem, but simply the most vis-
ible symptom of cultural alienation. As a colonized nation´s culture does not
progress from its own history, and as its objective or “destino” is to fulfill the
needs of another, the colony does not have its own “ser,” or existence; it is
hollow, without essence. The colony, then becomes alienated from its right to
authentic culture, existence, destiny, and freedom. Brazilians exported raw
materials and consumed metropolitan cultural products, including ideas,
which, Corbisier adds, were received “prontas e acabadas, como os produ-
tos industriais.”47 “Se eram inglêses os sapatos e as fazendas das roupas que
vestíamos,” explains Corbisier, “franceses [sic] eram os livros que líamos e as
idéias de que nos utilizávamos.”48
This mimicry was an inevitable symptom of alienation, but also promoted
it. In perhaps his most widely reproduced lines, Corbisier writes:

. . . produzir matéria prima é produzir o não ser, a mera virtualidade, a mera
possibilidade de ser, aquilo que só virá a ser quando fôr transformado pelos
outros, quando receber a forma que os outros lhe imprimirem. Importar o
produto acabado é importar o ser, a forma que encarna e reflete a cosmovisão
daqueles que a produziram. Ao importar, por exemplo, o cadillac [sic], o chi-
cletes [sic], a coca-­cola [sic] e o cinema não importamos apenas objetos ou
mercadorias, mas também todo um complexo de valores e de condutas que se
acham implicados nesses produtos.49

If this was the case for objects produced elsewhere, then it was even
more so for finished ideas. Brazilians were unable to “transformar e assimi-
lar” these ideas “simplesmente porque nos falta a órgão que permitiria essa
transformação” and so became “o invólucro vazio de um conteúdo que não
é nosso porque é alheio.”50 Brazil had inherited an empty, hollow, alienated
culture that had neither its own objective nor destiny.
The adoption of foreign ideas and perspectives caused the most damaging
aspect of cultural alienation: Brazilians, having merely copied criteria and
analytical tools from abroad, could not authentically view, analyze or critique
themselves or their culture. With a metropolitan perspective, Brazilians saw
their reality “através de interpretações importadas” and held of themselves “a
idéia que convinha aos colonizadores que tivéssemos, a idéia que coincidia
com os interêsses da exploração e os justificava.”51 This perspective included
racial prejudices copied from the “imperialistas” and used then to rationalize
Brazilian inferiority. According to Sodré, “O preconceito de raça e de côr do
europeu é, pois, o mesmo do senhor de terras brasileiro.”52
166 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

Brazilians, then, in addition to having an alienated culture, had an alien-

ated history and an alienated identity. In the words of Corbisier, “Éramos
estranhos em nossa terra” with a history that was only that of “Portugal na
América.”53 Yet, if alienation was an inevitability of the colonial structure and
independence in Brazil had not upset the colonial structure, but had left Brazil
still “econômica e culturalmente uma colônia,” then how could the isebianos
themselves bear the tools, criteria and perspective to perform their analysis?54

A Tomada de Consciência
Corbisier explains that in order for a dependent country within a colonial
structure to break away from the inevitability of alienation and its symptoms,
the nation must have an awakening or cultural epiphany of sorts. This awak-
ening is not driven by the “capricho de indivíduos ou de grupos isolados, mas
é um fenômeno histórico que implica e assinala a rutura do complexo colo-
nial.”55 Corbisier provides a list of factors that can cause this breakthrough
in consciousness. The first factor is war. Echoing CEPAL’s views on external
shocks, Corbisier notes that wars exaggerate dependence, but can also force
a greater independence, since the products that the colony usually consumes
but cannot produce itself become more difficult (or impossible) to obtain.
This sudden lack forces the nation to become aware of its instrumental func-
tion as a colony. Corbisier notes that “os dois surtos industriais no Brasil
coincidem com as duas guerras mundiais.”56
More importantly, at least for this analysis, is the “crise mundial de
­cultura”—a term that Corbisier attributes to the Uruguayan scholar Alberto
Zum Felde—resulting from World War II. In El problema de la cultura ame­
ricana, Zum Felde explains that with the fall of France in World War II, Latin
America found itself in a cultural crisis. In Zum Felde’s view, France was the
nation with the least nationalist and most universal culture of all. Yet, hav-
ing served as a support to Latin American cultures for so long, France had
now left these countries “solos y como desvalidos.”57 Latin Americans would
now have to carry out their cultural development alone, since, as Zum Felde
states, the English and North Americans lacked the universality of culture
and intellectual sophistication that France had exhibited.58 To Corbisier, “é
talvez o momento de tentarmos andar com os próprios pés.”59
Internal crises could also cause a breakthrough in critical awareness,
whether caused by domestic or international forces, like the international
economic crisis of 1929 and the Brazilian Revolution of 1930. In addition,
Corbisier explains that the importation of political institutions, like univer-
sal suffrage or national political parties, in a country that contains “tôdas as
êpocas da cultura . . . primitive, . . . arcaico, . . . [e] moderno” might lead to
crises of the “limites de tolerância à alienação.”60
Campbell 167

Last on Corbisier’s list of causative factors, we arrive at the isebiano mo-

ment. Corbisier reveals that a nation might gain consciousness through
newly forged cultural and economic relations. In the Brazilian case, this fac-
tor corresponds to the creation of a national “intelligentsia,” national labor
movement, national liberation movement and of popular awareness.61 Only
at this moment of transition, according to Corbisier, “começam a surgir as
condições reais que nos permitirão lançar as bases de um pensamento na-
cional autêntico.”62 Corbisier employed the most enthusiastic language in his
descriptions, but he was not alone in perceiving a unique moment to claim
an authentic Brazilian culture. Vieira Pinto sees this moment as marked by
“intenso desenvolvimento” which inspires “uma era de existência original.”63
Guerreiro Ramos states that Brazil was changing its “articulação à história
universal” and “com o mundo” through transformations in the economic
system.64

Cultural and Economic Development

While Corbisier, Vieira Pinto, and Guerreiro Ramos’ analyses bear historical
materialist tendencies, the isebiano texts analyzed here recognize a dialec-
tical relationship between economic and cultural development. The econ-
omy affected culture as “um povo econômicamente colonial ou dependente
também será dependente e colonial do ponto de vista da cultura.”65 Corbisier,
in explaining this dialectic, relies on Jean-Paul Sartre’s interpretation of co-
lonialism as a system. In “Le colonialisme est un système,” Sartre criticizes
French colonialism in Algeria, or, better said, he criticizes French surprise at
violence committed by Algerians against them. Sartre claims that “Le prob-
lème algérien est d’abord économique” but is also social, psychological and
political. Sartre states that the Algerians’ “libération et celle de la France ne
peut sortir que de l’éclatement de la colonisation,” demonstrating that colo-
nialism is a complete system integrating and restricting not only the colony,
but also the colonial power.66 Corbisier also refers frequently to an article
written by Georges Balandier who offers a series of definitions (dependence,
colonial situation, etc.) and a structural interpretation of the phases of colo-
nialism, cultural mechanisms that accompany it (including a discussion on
the adoption of racial constructs), and factors that might lead to a “prise de
conscience.”67 Corbisier avoids, however, establishing a strict causal relation-
ship between culture and economics, stating that both rely upon each other.
Corbisier describes this relationship as one of “implicação dialética” where
changes in one “provocam ou tendem a provocar transformações análogas
no outro.”68
A new developmental model afforded Brazilians the possibility to create
their own being, their own essence, and their own culture; conversely, the new
168 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

Brazilian awareness caused by international and internal crises and changes

would stimulate this new development model and alter the economic struc-
ture. Economic independence, while “necessária” for “emancipação cultural”
was not “suficiente” to create it.69 As Vieira Pinto explains:
Será tanto mais rica, extensa e original a cultura do povo quanto mais adian-
tado o desenvolvimento das suas condições materiais de existência; mas,
recìprocamente, quanto mais consciência adquirir da sua personalidade
cultural, mais identificado se sentir com os objetos da sua criação científica
ou artística, melhores recursos terá para compreender a sua realidade, e por
tanto mais eficazes instrumentos para nela intervir modificando‑a em seu
proveito.70

Roberto Campos dedicates his conference paper, “Cultura e Desenvolvi-

mento,” to a discussion of this interdependence between culture and economic
development. Campos identifies two points of intersection: “compatibilidade
entre o sistema de valores culturais de uma comunidade e o seu desenvolvi-
mento econômico” and “grau de eficácia dessa cultura na promoção do
desenvolvimento.”71 Relying heavily on the writings of W. W. ­Rostow, Arthur
Lewis, and Walter Rochs Goldschmidt, and injecting English phrases, such
as “General theory of employment, interest and money” and “expansibility
of wants,” Campos explains that while all cultures are compatible with eco-
nomic development, some are more so than others.72 A culture that is ade-
quate to economic development, he explains, is:
. . . aquela que, em primeiro lugar, satisfaz as necessidades de bem-­estar fí-
sico de seus componentes; que em segundo, está organizada para continuar
satisfazendo, indefinidamente, essas necessidades; e, finalmente, que oferece
aos seus componentes as satisfações necessárias para o ajustamento de sua
personalidade ao contexto de seu próprio sistema de valores, desde que não
explore, física ou psicològicamente, alguma outra população ou segmento da
população.73

Analyzing consumption attitudes, accumulation of goods, possibility of pur-

chasing goods produced, acceptance of innovation and social mobility, Cam-
pos offers that in the Brazilian case, efficiency is Brazil’s greater problem.
According to Campos, a weak technological heritage, the lack of “audácia
social,” and a tendency towards mimicry led Brazil to under-­development.74
The vocabulary chosen to describe the process of alienation, mimicry,
and liberation employed by Corbisier, Vieira Pinto, and Ramos is similar to
other early post-­colonial thought. In his comparison of the writings of Franz
Fanon with those emanating from ISEB, Renato Ortiz found that both base
their arguments on the concepts of alienation and the colonial situation, with
Balandier most likely providing the cross-­continental link.75 The isebianos
and Franz Fanon recognized the colonial inferiority complex (introduced
Campbell 169

by O. Mannoni), but saw it as situational, rather than inherent, and there-

fore possible to overcome.76 For the isebianos, liberation from the inferiority
complex caused by the colonial situation was to come through industrial-­
based national development. While for Fanon the nation was a utopian ideal,
for the isebianos the nation was “um programa de desenvolvimento.”77

A Brazilian Problem
Campos and Sodré’s respective diplomatic and military responsibilities ini-
tially kept them from full participation in ISEB. Their arguments remain
relatively free of ISEB developmentalist rhetoric. While Guerreiro Ramos,
Álvaro Vieira Pinto, and Roland Corbisier express a shared vocabulary sig-
naling the alienated “ser” of a Brazilian culture dialectically connected to
the colonial structure, Campos uses neither the term “alienação” nor “colo-
nial.” The straight-­forward approach of Sodré’s paper suggests disdain for the
terms “ser” and “essência.” Campos, while recognizing the importance of the
material well-­being of the populace, suggests that “é mais importante maxi-
mizar o ritmo do desenvolvimento econômico, que corrigir as desigualdades
sociais” since “Não temos vocação cultural para endossar um projeto socia­
lista.”78 Meanwhile, Sodré states that .”.. só é nacional o que é popular,” stress-
ing that only now the popular can take hold due to the growth of the middle
class that neutralized the power of the rural landed class.79 While Corbisier
relies heavily on French, German and Latin American authors, Campos re-
fers to English texts written by two North Americans and one St. Lucien, and
Sodré refers exclusively to Brazilian authors. While Corbisier finds support
in writers focused on the liberation of Algeria, Campos finds support in the
fathers of modernization theory.
Nonetheless, Campos and Sodré, two writers situated at opposite ends of
the ISEB debate on culture (from the conservative economist to the Marxist
military officer) accepted many of the same underlying assumptions: Brazil
was essentially underdeveloped, this under-­development was characterized
by cultural deficiencies and a lack of industrial capitalism, and the time
was ripe in the early 1950s for cultural transformation and industrial de-
velopment. The difference between them was simply who should carry out
this developmental enterprise. For Campos, who would later work closely
with U.S. technocrats during the Brazilian military dictatorship, anyone
with capital was a likely candidate, while for Sodré only o povo, the peo-
ple, of Brazil could create a truly national culture to carry forward national
development.
Sodré and Campos represent extremes of a modernization framework
within which Corbisier and Guerreiro Ramos also fit comfortably. The ise­
biano belief in progress and modernization meant that Guerreiro Ramos
170 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

accepted colonialism as a necessary evil, explaining that it allowed a country

once dominated by indigenous tribes to leap “várias etapas de desenvolvi-
mento.”80 Corbisier too saw colonialism as a necessary process. While in the
short term it brought alienation, in the long term it led to a “processo de
libertação econômica e cultural dos povos colonizados.”81 Of course, this pro-
cess of liberation could only begin with intense industrial development and
economic and cultural expansion.82
Perhaps more importantly, all of the intellectuals studied here saw the
question of Brazilian culture as a Brazilian question. While it was a problem
derived inevitably from a colonial structure, only the Brazilian people could
decide to proceed from colonialism toward development. Whether they
chose to create a coherent, authentic, national ideology or through economic
investment stemming from domestic and foreign sources, the choice had to
be made by Brazilians and could not be forced from the outside. As Corbisier
states, “Compreendemos finalmente, que somos nós mesmos e o Brasil [sic],
que o Brasil não é exterior a nós mas está em nós, faz parte do nosso corpo e
da nossa alma” and later, “podemos desde já concluir que o problema da ‘cul-
tura’ brasileira não nos é ‘exterior’, mas, ao contrário, é um problema próprio,
pessoal, de cada um de nós.”83 To the isebianos, the Brazilians were poised
to move from the position of object to subject, from tools of colonialism to
bearers of their own cultural being.
For this reason the texts studied here, almost without exception, fail to
mention the U.S.84 The writers of ISEB were so focused on creating a new
theoretical framework for the development of the new Brazil, and so inspired
by the energy of the post-World War II moment that the reader could easily
forget that United States culture, cultural programs, and cultural goods were
multiplying throughout the urban centers of Brazil. But this also shows that
at root the nationalist movement was just that—nationalist. The intellectuals
studied here did not consider their positions to be a reaction to the United
States, but rather to be part of a process that preceded U.S. influence in Brazil.
Corbisier’s references to Sartre and Balandier also remind us that the ise-
bianos were writing during the moment of the rising possibility of African
independence, in which freedom from colonialism dominated discourse. Of
course, we should not forget that, especially in the case of Campos, the lack
of mention of U.S. cultural influence might also signify silent alignment with
U.S. influence in Brazil.
ISEB writers did not completely ignore the United States. In fact, anti-­
imperialism as anti-­americanism (and vice-­versa) was an accepted point
among several authors.85 Nonetheless, the focus of this anti-­imperial dis-
course revolved around economic and political, and not cultural issues. Given
the arguments for the dialectical relationship between culture and economic
Campbell 171

structure, this seems a curious omission, but the intellectuals assumed that
the question of Brazilian culture must be faced and answered on Brazilian
terms—Brazilian, that is, as defined by the intellectuals of ISEB.
The isebianos’ cultural brand of national developmentalism toured the
country through travelers and newspapers; it was not bound to the South or
Southeast. An article published in the Fortaleza newspaper, Diário do Povo,
in January of 1959 displayed an interview with a student from Ceará studying
at the Escola Brasileira de Administração Pública in Rio de Janeiro. In the ar-
ticle, the student, Ari Leite, explains that “nacionalismo resulta do repentino
despertar da consciência de um povo que, superando as limitações de per-
cepção do mundo, limitações estas decorrentes do seu estágio de subdesen-
volvimento, resolve, a qualquer preço, obter a sua auto-­determinação e assim
realiza, com êxito, um plano de desenvolvimento nacional.” Leite adds that
under-­development results from “uma relação entre potência dominadora
e pais espoliado” and that “o nacionalismo é uma atitude de defesa contra
todos os excessos da dominação estrangeira.” Leite leaves no doubt as to the
origins of his ideas. When asked to give key names in Brazilian nationalism,
he first names Guerreiro Ramos and describes his role in ISEB (or better
said, his role in the crisis discussed in the following section), and then adds
Ignacio Rangel and Gilberto Paim, both associated with ISEB. The following
week, the Diário do Povo printed Guerreiro Ramos’ letter of resignation from
ISEB.86
In the same year, an article by Sodré appeared in A união nas artes e nas
letras of João Pessoa. In this article, Sodré summarizes his position on na-
tional development and culture for a general audience. He defines culture in
non-­technical language, emphasizing that freedom of thought is only valid
when it supports the development of culture, and that the development of
culture, in turn, is only valid when it leads to progress. Sodré explains that
“A idéia de superar a fase colonial, de realizar nacionalmente o país[,] ga­
nhou de tal forma a consciência dos brasileiros que se tornou invencível.
Ela afeta, hoje, todos os campos, e preside a tarefa de todos os brasileiros.”87
The development of a truly national culture, then, was the responsibility of
all Brazilians, whether they read the ideas of the isebianos in Rio de Janeiro,
Fortaleza, or João Pessoa.

The End of ISEB

One of the original and most prominent members of IBESP, and later ISEB,
caused a rift over the issue of foreign investment and privatization, help-
ing to spur ISEB’s radical change in focus in its final years. In O naciona­
lismo na atualidade brasileira, Hélio Jaguaribe, member of ISEB’s board and
172 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

Director of the Department of Political Science, demonstrated a drastic turn

in thought. Jaguaribe presented nationalism as a means to an end, rather
than as an end in itself. He suggested that privatization, leading to the pos-
sible purchase of Brazilian oil resources by Standard Oil, was not necessarily
a negative possibility, as long as the foreign investors administered these re-
sources efficiently.88 In addition, Jaguaribe suggested the repression and ille-
gality of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) and the creation of a South
American security mechanism to counter communist agitation. Vieira Pinto
strongly opposed this line of reasoning, while Guerreiro Ramos suggested
the expulsion of Jaguaribe from the institute, and, with the support of Cor-
bisier, proposed a shift in ISEB policy from theoretical to militant objectives.
Jaguaribe´s positions provoked a strong reaction, not only from fellow ise-
bianos, but from the União Nacional de Estudantes (UNE), which supported
Guerreiro ­Ramos’ positions.89
Ultimately, this disagreement led to intervention by the Minister of Edu-
cation and the modification of the statutes regarding ISEB’s organization and
orientation. By 1959, ISEB had gained greater space for theoretical pluralism.
In addition, a Board of Professors replaced the former Board of Trustees.
This phase of ISEB’s operation also signaled the beginning of a significant
change in the body of the professors involved with the institute. After the
modification of the ISEB statutes, Jaguaribe, Campos, and three other ISEB
professors resigned from the institute. Guerreiro Ramos stepped decidedly
away from direct action with ISEB. Then, in 1960, after a year in which ISEB
dedicated itself mostly to electoral politics, Corbisier also left the institute
to become a state deputy for Guanabara through the Partido Trabalhista do
Brasil (PTB), thereby leaving ISEB without a Director. After some debate
between UNE and MEC, Vieira Pinto was chosen as Corbisier’s successor,
leading to a distinct phase of ISEB militancy.
While sectors of the Brazilian press, notably O Globo, had long accused
ISEB of being directed by communists, it was only in these final years that
ISEB shifted toward the militant left.90 In 1961, now under Jânio Quadros’
presidential administration, MEC greatly reduced ISEB’s budget, removing
the possibility of continued publication and forcing Vieira Pinto into an ad-
ministrative crisis.91 At this point, and especially under João Goulart’s pres-
idential administration, ISEB intellectuals began to dedicate their energy to
the reformas de base, or fundamental reforms necessary to carry out the Bra-
zilian revolution, such as in the areas of education, land reform, and labor or-
ganization.92 As a source of supplemental income, Vieira Pinto coordinated
a collection called Os Cadernos do Povo, upon the request of editor of Civi-
lização Brasileira, Ênio Silveira.93 In addition, ISEB began to work with the
Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC) da UNE.94 In 1963, isebianos were among
Campbell 173

those who assisted in creating the Comando dos Trabalhadores Intelectuais.95

ISEB intellectuals also began to reject the previously formulated ideology of
development. According to Sodré, by January of 1964, the U.S. Secret Service
had categorized ISEB as a “centro de comunistas.”96 ISEB, once a promoter
of national developmentalism, now opposed this ideology, seeking to funda-
mentally transform Brazilian society through reformas de base and militant
action.
But April of 1964 revealed a different destiny for ISEB. On April 13, in the
weeks following the military coup, both ISEB and UNE were forcibly closed,
their documents and publications seized and burned.97 The military regime
subjected some ISEB intellectuals, like Sodré, Corbisier, and Vieira Pinto to
interrogation. Vieira Pinto left Brazil, returning only in the late 1960s.98 Both
Sodré and Corbisier lost their political rights and were briefly incarcerated.99
Guerreiro Ramos also had his political rights revoked, leaving Brazil in 1966
to become a professor at the University of Southern California.100 Campos,
however, initially supported the military coup and held several governmental
positions in the ensuing years.101
Nonetheless, the ideas that isebianos generated on culture and develop-
ment reverberate throughout 20th- and 21st-­century Brazilian thought, social
movements and even beyond Brazil’s borders. It is common to find ISEB or
its faculty studied alongside other influential organizations and scholars,
such as CEPAL, the Escola de Sociologia de São Paulo, the CPC da UNE
or the PCB.102 The Escola de Sociologia de São Paulo elaborated its interna-
tionally influential dependency theory in direct response to ISEB thought on
development and imperialism, disputing the national nature of its claims.103
According to Renato Ortiz, isebiano thought “se popularizou, isto é,
tornou‑se senso comum e se transformou em ‘religiosidade popular’ nas
discussões sobre cultura brasileira.”104 While the CPC da UNE was not for-
mulated around a particular theory or methodology, many of the artists
involved claimed to be strongly influenced, and even inspired, by Roland
Corbisier’s Formação e problema da cultura brasileira.105 Carlos Estevam
Martins of the CPC da UNE in Guanabara was Álvaro Vieira Pinto´s assis-
tant and worked at ISEB.106 The CPC da UNE was based on the Movimento
de Cultura Popular (MCP) in Recife (in turn, loosely based on the French
popular education movement Peuple et Culture) within which Paulo Freire
was active. Vanilda Paiva Pereira traced to ISEB the theoretical origins of
Paulo Freire’s pedagogical method, later influential in civil rights education
campaigns in the United States.107 Márcio de Oliveira found the roots of the
project to construct Brasília in ISEB, while Ortiz pointed out the impossibil-
ity of studying theater or cinema without finding traces of isebiano thought
on culture and alienation.108 Later, Latin American thought on culture and
174 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

imperialism of the 1970s, like Ariel Dorfman and Armand Matterlart’s now
classic Para leer al pato Donald, would come to echo ISEB debates on cul-
ture.109 In sum, ISEB thought on culture and development not only survived
over half a century of study and change, but provides valuable insight into
fifty years of international balance between liberalism and neo-­liberalism,
Marxism and post-­marxism, colonialism and postcolonialism, imperialism
and neo-­imperialism.

Concluding Remarks
When Corbisier spoke with Marcel in 1951, World War II was less than a de-
cade cold, the Algerian War had yet to begin, and President Vargas had just
returned to office as a populist. His conversations with Sartre, on the other
hand, came on the tail of the Cuban Revolution, which Sartre, now fully em-
bedded in the Algerian War for Independence, had just visited. Reflecting
on his choice to speak to Sartre in Portuguese rather than French, Corbisier
stated, “Em que língua teria Sartre conversado com Fidel e outros dirigentes
da revolução cubana? Só poderia ter sido em castelhano ou recorrendo a
intérpretes. O complexo de inferioridade estava superado, vencido.”110 Cuba,
that is, unlike Brazil, had become truly independent because it had attained
not only political and economic freedom, but also presumably cultural liber-
ation. It is hard to imagine Campos agreeing with Corbisier on Cuba´s polit-
ical status, but his arguments, though coming from a different angle, outline
the same requirements of cultural authenticity and the same emphasis on the
role of culture in economic development.
Nestled between World War II and the Cuban Revolution and writing
during Prebisch-­era structuralism and struggles for African independence,
isebiano thought on Brazilian culture found common ground within mod-
ernization theory, nationalist Marxism and postcolonial liberation thought.111
The isebianos were not simply reacting to the Cuban Revolution, to U.S. influ-
ence, or to struggles for African independence, nor were they only rejecting
European colonialism. Instead, they recognized the importance of culture in
Brazilian independence, nationalism and development. They sought a new
cultural formation—be it modern, efficient, revolutionary or anti-­imperial—
capable of transforming Brazil’s economic development. They dissected con-
cepts of culture, alienation, mimicry and imperialism in the hopes of guiding
Brazil’s new cultural apparatus of the state in its search for Brazilianness. In
the end, ISEB’s own tomada de consciência liberated it even from the gov-
ernment that had formed it, leading to its eventual closing. Nonetheless, the
ideas circulating through and from this institution influenced generations of
intellectuals studying cultural theory and imperialism and social movements
concerned with popular culture and globalization throughout Latin America.
Campbell 175

Notes

1. ​The research for a portion of this article was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation through an IIE Graduate Fellowship for International Study. I thank Wil-
liam Caferro, Lauren Clay, Marshall C. Eakin, and Jim Epstein, all of Vanderbilt Uni-
versity, for their support and suggestions on drafts of this article. In addition, I owe
the final product to the valuable criticism offered by the participants of the Encontro
as Quintas Especial organized by Marcos Chor Maio of the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz
at FIOCRUZ, particularly that of the commenters Luís Otávio Ferreira and Robert
Wegner. I am grateful, as well, to Flávio Henrique Albert Brayner of the Universidade
Federal de Pernambuco for introducing me to studies on ISEB.
2. ​Roland Corbisier, Autobiografia filosófica: das ideologias à teoria da praxis (Rio
de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1978), 50.
3. ​Ibid, 77.
4. ​Ibid, 99–100.
5. ​Ibid, 100.
6. ​Daniel Pécaut, Os intelectuais e a política no Brasil: Entre o povo e a nação, trans.
ated by Maria Júlia Goldwasser (São Paulo: Ática, 1990), 110; Caio Navarro de Toledo,
ISEB: Fábrica de ideologias, 2 Ed. (São Paulo: Ática, 1978), 32.
7. ​Corbisier traces his philosophical evolution in the Autobiografia filosófica cited
above.
8. ​Luiz Carlos Bresser-­Pereira, “De la Cepal y el Iseb a la teoría de la dependen-
cia,” Desarrollo Económico 46, 183 (Oct.–Dec., 2006): 419–439; Caio Navarro de To-
ledo, “ISEB Intellectuals, the Left, and Marxism,” Latin American Perspectives 25, 1
(Jan.,  1998): 109–135; Maria José Trevisan, “Anos ’50: os empresários e a produção
cultural,” Revista brasileira de história 8, 15 (1987–1988): 139–156.
9. ​Alzira Alves de Abreu analyzes ISEB as a special interest group without support
from the centers of power in “Nationalisme et action politique au Brésil: Une étude sur
l’ISEB” (Ph.D. Diss., Université René Descartes, 1975); Donald Roderick Gaylord claims
that ideas expressed by ISEB were already in circulation in “The Instituto Superior
de Estudos Brasileiros (ISEB) and Developmental Nationalism in Brazil, 1955–1964”
(Ph.D. Diss., Tulane University, 1991); Toledo studies ISEB as a “factory of ideologies”
that alienates the people by claiming to represent them in ISEB: fábrica de ideologias.
In addition to these and other referenced works on ISEB, see Caio Navarro de Toledo,
Org., Intelectuais e política no Brasil: a experiência do ISEB (Rio de Janeiro: Revan, 2005).
10. ​Carlos Guilherme Mota, Ideologia da Cultura Brasileira (1933–1974) (São
Paulo: Ática, 1977), 195.
11. ​Toledo, ISEB: fábrica de ideologias, 182.
12. ​See Renato Ortiz, Cultura brasileira e identidade nacional (São Paulo: Editora
Brasiliense, 2006), 14–35, for a detailed comparison of Sílvio Romero, Euclides da
Cunha, Nina Rodrigues, and Manuel Bomfim.
13. ​Adriana Michéle Campos Johnson, Sentencing Canudos: Subalternity in the
Backlands of Brazil (Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2010).
14. ​Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands, trans. Samuel Putnam (Chi-
cago: U of Chicago P, 2010).
176 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

15. ​Alfredo Bosi, História concisa da literature brasileira (São Paulo: Cultrix, 1970),
342; Mary L. Daniel, “Brazilian Fiction from 1900 to 1945,” in The Cambridge History
of Latin American Literature, ed. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria et al. (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP), 158.
16. ​Pécaut, 23.
17. ​Oswald de Andrade, “Manifesto Antropófago,” Revista de Antropofagia 1, no. 1
(May, 1928), 3 and 7. For a thorough discussion of cannibalism and national culture,
see Carlos Juareguí, Canibalia: canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia cultural y con-
sumo en América Latina (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2008), 425–435. The quotation
above is from Juaregui, 425. For more on Brazilian Modernism, see Mário da Silva
Brito, História do modernismo brasileiro: antecedentes da Semana de Arte Moderna,
4ª- Ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Civlização Brasileira, 1974) and Afonso Ávila, O modernismo
(São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1975).
18. ​Antônio de Alcântara Machado, “Abre-Alas,” Revista de Antropofagia 1, no. 1
(May, 1928), 1.
19. ​On the rise of samba and its institutionalization, see Hermano Vianna, The
Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil, translated by John
Charles Chasteen (Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 1999).
20. ​Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of
Brazilian Civilization, trans. Samuel Putnam (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946).
21. ​The Vargas era spanned from 1930 to 1954 and included: the Second Republic
from 1930 to 1937; the Estado Novo from 1937 to 1945 with Vargas as dictator; Vargas
as elected representative in Congress (in theory) from 1945 to 1950, and; Vargas’s
return as elected president from 1950 until his suicide in 1954. See Robert M. Levine,
Father of the Poor?: Vargas and his Era (New York: Cambridge UP, 1998).
22. ​Otaíza de Oliveira Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil (1930/1973),
29th ed. (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 2005), 131.
23. ​Inspection agencies focused on professional and technical instruction and wa-
ter and sewage. The museums were the Museu Nacional and the Museu Histórico
Nacional. MESP also oversaw the National Observatory, the National Library, and
the Casa Ruy Barbosa. Daryle Williams, Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Re-
gime, 1930–1945 (Durham: Duke UP, 2001), 53–54.
24.Ibid, 66.
25. ​Ibid, 67–68 (on CNC), 52 (quotation).
26. ​Bresser-­Pereira, 421.
27. ​Joseph L. Love, “The Rise and Decline of Economic Structuralism in Latin
America: New Dimensions,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (January 1,
2005): 116.
28. ​Ibid., 116–118.
29. ​For more on the origins, reach, and trajectory of structuralism see: Joseph
Love, Crafting the Third World: Theorizing Underdevelopment in Rumania and Bra-
zil (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996); Love, “The Rise and Decline of Economic Struc-
turalism in Latin America”; Bresser-­Pereira, “De la Cepal y el Iseb a la teoría de
la dependencia.” For more on the Forum Roberto Simonsen, see Trevisan, cited
above.
Campbell 177

30. ​Toledo, ISEB: Fábrica de ideologias, 184. According to Roland Corbisier, ear-

lier the same year Candido Motta Filho approached him about founding an Escola
Superior de Paz to be led by the same group of intellectuals. Corbisier, Autobiografia
filosófica, 95.
31. ​According to Bresser-­Pereira, dependency theory disagrees with imperial the-
ories (such as those of ISEB) in that it recognizes that the Center might also promote
industrialization in the Periphery and that the national bourgeoisie might serve as
an obstacle to Brazilian development, instead of as a support. Bresser-­Pereira, 421
and 435.
32. ​Abreu provides a clear description of ISEB structure on pages 106 to 116.
33. ​Guerreiro Ramos, “O tema da transplantação e as entelequias na interpretação
sociológica no Brasil,” Serviço Social Ano XIV, 74 (Oct., Nov., Dec., 1954): 73–95.
34. ​Both conferences “Situação e alternativas da cultura brasileira” (1955) and
“Formação e problema da cultura brasileira” (1956) were published in Roland Cor-
bisier, Formação e problema da cultura brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Edu­
cação e Cultura, Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros, 1959), quotation  53; the
former was also published in Introdução aos problemas do Brasil, 185–218 (Rio de
Janeiro: Ministério da Educação e Cultura, Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros,
1956). The page numbers given in the footnote references refer to the collection pub-
lished in 1959.
35. ​For the distinction between “nature” and “culture,” Corbisier found support
in Hegel. For culture as an historical process, he relied on Alfred Weber and Burck-
hardt. Corbisier, Formação e problema, 13 and 54.
36. ​Nelson Werneck Sodré, “Estudo histórico-­sociológico da cultura brasileira,” in
Introdução aos problemas do Brasil, 159–183 (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério de Educação
e Cultura/Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros, 1956), 160.
37. ​Guerreiro Ramos, O problema nacional do Brasil. 2 Ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Editôra
Saga, 1960), 241–242. Corbisier described the material and non-­material products to
which Guerreiro Ramos refers as objectifications of the spirit, manifested objectively
in the object created or subjectively through the appropriation of objective culture by
the subject, Formação e problema, 18.
38. ​Roberto Campos, “Cultura e Desenvolvimento,” in Introdução aos problemas
do Brasil, 221–233 (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério de Educação e Cultura/Instituto Su-
perior de Estudos Brasileiros, 1956), 222; Sodré, “Estudo histórico-­sociológico,” 160;
Guerreiro Ramos, O problema nacional, 241.
39. ​Sodré, “Estudo histórico-­sociológico,” 165.
40. ​Ibid, 165.
41. ​Ibid, 167.
42. ​Ibid, 168.
43. ​Ibid, 175.
44. ​Álvaro Vieira Pinto, Consciência e realidade nacional. 2  vol. A consciência
crítica (Rio de Janeiro: MEC/ISEB, 1960), 504.
45. ​Campos, “Cultura e desenvolvimento,” 231 and 230, respectively.
46. ​Guerreiro Ramos, “O tema da transplantação,” 76.
47. ​Ibid, 39.
178 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

48. ​Ibid, 40.
49. ​Ibid, 69.
50. ​Ibid, 69–70.
51. ​Guerreiro Ramos, O problema nacional, 243 and 41, respectively.
52. ​Sodré, “Estudo histórico-­sociológico,” 180. Corbisier also states: “‘o complexo
de inferioridade’, problema típico da psicologia dos povos colonizados, é suscitado
nesses povos pelo projeto de dominação dos povos imperialistas, cuja ideologia im-
plica a tese de sua superioridade racial e cultural.” Formação e problema, 73.
53. ​Corbisier, Formação e problema, 47 and 63, respectively.
54. ​Ibid, 39.
55. ​Ibid, 41.
56. ​Ibid, 42.
57. ​Alberto Zum Felde, El problema de la cultura americana (Buenos Aires: Edi-
torial Losada, 1943), 51.
58. ​Ibid, 52.
59. ​Corbisier, Formação e problema, 43.
60. ​Ibid, 43–44.
61. ​Ibid, 44.
62. ​Ibid, 86.
63. ​Vieira Pinto, Consciência e realidade, 505.
64. ​Guerreiro Ramos, O problema nacional, 242–243.
65. ​Corbisier, Formação e problema, 32.
66. ​Jean-Paul Sartre, “Le Colonialisme est un Système,” Les Temps Modernes,
no. 123 (Mar.–Apr. 1956): 1371–1372. The italics are Sartre’s.
67. ​Georges Balandier, “Contribution a une Sociologie de la Dépendance,” Cahiers
Internationaux de sociologie, 12 (1952): 47–69.
68. ​Corbisier, Formação e problema, 83.
69. ​Ibid, 66.
70. ​Vieira Pinto, Consciência e realidade, 506.
71. ​Campos, 223.
72. ​The texts that Campos refers to are Arthur Lewis, The Theory of Economic
Growth (Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, 1955); W.W. Rostow, The Process of
Economic Growth (New York: Norton, 1952) and Walter R. Goldschmidt, “The In-
terrelations between Cultural Factors and the Acquisition of New Technical Skills,”
in The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas, ed. Bert F. Hoselitz (Chicago: Chicago UP,
1952), 135–151. This latter publication is listed under the section title “The Cultural
Aspects of Economic Growth,” which includes articles by Ralph Linton, Melville F.
Herskovits, Marion F. Levy, Morris E. Opler and Morris Watnick.
73. ​Ibid, 224.
74. ​Ibid, 230.
75. ​See Ortiz, 50–67 for this comparison.
76. ​Fanon engages with Mannoni in the chapter “The So-Called Dependency
Complex of the Colonized,” in Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Richard Philcox (New
York: Grove Press, 2007), 64–88. This work was originally published as Peau noire,
masques blancs in 1952.
Campbell 179

77. ​Ortiz, 65.
78. ​Campos, “Cultura e desenvolvimento,” 233.
79. ​Sodré, “Estudo histórico-­sociológico,” 183. Guerreiro Ramos, in O problema
nacional indirectly agrees with Sodré stating “O povo é verdadeiro gênio da cultura
nacional. Só existem cultura e ciências nacionais, do ponto-de-­vista do povo,” 244.
Vieira Pinto and Corbisier share the Leninist stance that while the essence of cul-
ture comes from “o povo,” it is important for intellectuals to guide and nurture this
process.
80. ​Guerreiro Ramos, “O tema da transplantação,” 75.
81. ​Corbisier, Formação e problema, 31.
82. ​Along these lines, Luiz Carlos Bresser-­Pereira refers to the ISEB mission as
one of promoting Brazil’s “revolução capitalista.” Luiz Carlos Bresser-­Pereira, “O con-
ceito de desenvolvimento do ISEB rediscutido,” DADOS—Revista de Ciências Sociais
47, 1 (2004): 49–84.
83. ​Corbisier, Formação e problema, 50 and 70, respectively. The italics are Cor-
bisier’s.
84. ​Corbisier mentions a text by Edward Spranger about the United States.
85. ​In fact, the article “A política dos Estados Unidos,” printed in Cadernos de
Nosso Tempo, the journal published by IBESP, recognized the existence of a North
American empire already in 1955. Corbisier, who in the texts analyzed here did not
examine the United States, in his book later published in 1968 by Editora Civilização
Brasileira also dedicates several pages to the North American empire. “A política
dos Estados Unidos,” Cadernos de Nosso Tempo  3, no.  4 (Apr./Aug. 1955), 72–84,
reprinted in Simon Schwartzman, Org., O pensamento nacionalista e os “Cadernos
de Nosso Tempo” (Brasília: Câmara dos Deputados/Universidade de Brasília, 1981)
and Roland Corbisier, Reforma ou revolução? (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira,
1968).
86. ​Nogueira Carvalho, “Jovem estudante da EBAP define nacionalismo,” Diário
do Povo, January 8, 1959, Hemeroteca, Instituto do Ceará; Alberto Guerreiro Ramos,
“Guerreiro Ramos: ‘O ISEB que remanesse da crise que todos cobnhecem, é uma
entidade de dúbia’,” Diário do Povo, January 14, 1959, Hemeroteca, Instituto do Ceará;
Alberto Guerreiro Ramos, “Guerreiro Ramos: ‘O ISEB que remanesse da crise que
todos conhecem, é uma entidade de dúbia’ (cont.),” Diário do Povo, January 15, 1959,
Hemeroteca, Instituto do Ceará.
87. ​Nelson Werneck Sodré, “Cultura e progresso,” A união nas artes e nas letras,
July 9, 1959, Obras Raras, Biblioteca Átila Almeida, Universidade Estadual de Paraíba,
Campina Grande.
88. ​Toledo, in ISEB: Fábrica de ideologias, explains Jaguaribe’s rationale in this
way: “o que torna nacionalista a atual política do petróleo não é o fato de a Petrobrás
ser uma empresa do Estado brasileiro, dirigida por brasileiros natos etc. Em tese,
a política nacionalista do petróleo poderia ser realizada pela Standard ou qualquer
outra empresa, desde que concretamente, na situação presente do país, essa fosse a
forma mais eficaz de explorar o petróleo brasileiro e proporcionar à economia nacio-
nal o pleno uso e controle de tal matéria-­prima,” 134–135.
89. ​Pécaut, 111.
180 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1

90. ​For the media’s interpretation of ISEB see Pécaut, 114; Nelson Werneck Sodré,
A luta pela cultura (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Bertrand Brasil, 1990), 175–222, or; Sodré,
A verdade sobre o ISEB (Rio de Janeiro: Avenir, 1978), 55–60.
91. ​Marcos Cezar de Freitas, Álvaro Vieira Pinto: a personagem histórica e sua
trama (São Paulo: Cortez, 1998), 168.
92. ​Pécaut, 113. Isebiano Osny Duarte de Pereira stated: “Tôda revolução, pací-
fica ou violenta, tem de importar em reforma de base, ou não será revolução.” Osny
­Duarte de Pereira, “O ISEB. O desenvolvimento e as reformas de base,” Revista Brasil-
iense (May-June 1963): 40.
93. ​The objective of this collection was to “colocar ao alcance de todos os leitores—
pela natureza dos temas, pela forma como serão tratados, pelo preço accessível de
cada volume—o estudo honesto e realista dos grandes problemas nacionais. Em ou­
tras palavras, procurará ampliar a elite pensante do país . . . e não terá receio de criticar
a quem quer que seja ou de romper preconceitos e tabus criados pelo ou decorrentes
do sistema sócio-­econômico vigente no país.” Cited in Freitas, Álvaro Vieira Pinto,
166. ISEB contributions to this collection include Vieira Pinto’s Porque os ricos não
fazem greve?, Sodré’s Quem é o povo no Brasil?, Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos’
Quem dará o golpe no Brasil?, and Osny Duarte Pereira’s Quem faz as leis no Brasil?
These Cadernos were first released at the first Festival de cultura popular, organized
by the CPC da UNE. The Cadernos were also disseminated by the CPCs and UNE.
Garcia, 39 and Roderick, “ISEB and National Developmentalism,” 138.
94. ​Pécaut, 113.
95. ​According to Toledo, this organization “proposed to participate in forming a sin-
gle democratic and nationalist front alongside other popular forces united in a move-
ment to improve the structure of Brazilian society.” Toledo, “ISEB Intellectuals,” 129.
96. ​Sodré, A verdade sobre, 62.
97. ​Toledo, ISEB: Fábrica de ideologias, 191; Pécaut, 113.
98. ​Roderick, 294.
99. ​Ibid, 204.
100. ​Ibid, 248. Ramos died in Los Angeles in 1982.
101. ​Ibid, 190–191.
102. ​See for example Bresser-Pereira, “De la Cepal y el Iseb . . . ,” Pécaut 186–189
or Mota, chapter four.
103. ​Bresser-Pereira, 423.
104. ​Ortiz, 47.
105. ​The first CPC was established in the headquarters of UNE in Guanabara in
December of 1961. According to Miliandre Garcia, the Teatro de Arena provided a
space for artists engaged in the creation of nationalist popular art and served as a
forerunner of this organization. Within the CPC da UNE various artists, including
Ferreira Gullar, Vinícius de Moraes and Baden Powell rubbed elbows. Miliandre
Garcia, Do teatro militante à música engajada (São Paulo: Fundação Perseu Abramo,
2007), 7–9, 36–37, and 39.
106. ​Ortiz, 48.
107. ​Vanilda Pereira Paiva, Paulo Freire e o nacionalismo desenvolvimentista (Rio
de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1980).
Campbell 181

108. ​Márcio de Oliveira, “O ISEB e a construção de Brasília: correspondências

míticas,” Sociedade e estado 21, 2 (May/August, 2006): 487–512; Ortiz, 48.
109. ​Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, Para leer al pato Donald: comuni-
cación de masa y colonialismo (Siglo Veintiuno, 1972).
110. ​Corbisier, Autobiografia Filosófica, 100.
111. ​Renato Ortiz, in Cultura brasileira e identidade nacional (São Paulo: Editora
Brasiliense, 2006) emphasized links between ISEB writings on alienation and culture
and the MCP and the CPC da UNE.