Letters to a Latin American compiler: the transnational epistolary dialogue of José Enrique Rodó (1895-1910)

• Grant number: 24/15157-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Elisângela da Silva Santos
• Grantee: Elisângela da Silva Santos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The collection of the Uruguayan writer José Enrique Rodó (1871-1917) housed in the Biblioteca Nacional de Uruguay (BNU), Montevideo, brings together substantial passive correspondence, from writers from different locations, mainly from Latin America and Spain. The letters illuminate aspects of the complex network of sociability that permeated the universe of intellectuals from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, who sought to group themselves around themes linked to the future of the Latin American continent, therefore providing valuable memorial contributions to the study of the early modality of international circulation of ideas produced in that context. Considering the lack of systematic study on this correspondence and its possible transnational articulations, we intend to investigate how the composition of a network of intellectuals woven in an artisanal way and without institutional resources, managed to become a space of literate sociability interested in debates about the consequences of the region's political emancipation, involving democracy, literature and culture. With this, the objective is to contribute to the sociological debate regarding the studies of Latin American Social Thought, from a transnational perspective and from original and archival sources, specifically based on studies on Rodó's passive correspondence, which in our view established himself as a universal figure by overcoming localist debates and focusing on metropolitan theoretical approaches, deeply linked to the needs of his historical context. As a central hypothesis, we establish that the letters sent to Rodó can be read as legitimizing his important role in the pedagogical exercise practiced on the continent, and the epistolary exchange with personalities involved in the intellectual world is the result of his project to strengthen the production of intercontinental knowledge. (AU)