Superanimal, infrahuman: animality and gender in the birth of endocrinology in Brazil

• Grant number: 13/25558-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2014
• End date: February 29, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Nádia Farage
• Grantee: Giulia Bauab Levai
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this research project is to analyze the assumptions that inform and intersect the concepts of animality, gender and sexuality, in the establishment of endocrinology in Brazil, during the first three decades of the twentieth century. At that time, in that such developing science sought to establish itself in the scientific field, the debate concerning its method and its purpose comes to press, recording the reaction of the lay and popular thought to the mixture of substances between humans and animals, promoted by endocrinological research. To do so, we will focus on a controversial episode in the history of medicine, registered in Brazilian newspapers in the 1920s and 30 - the case of doctor Serge Voronoff, a Russian surgeon, whose name is associated to a rejuvenation method, performed by grafting the glands of primates in humans, in procedures that happened in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. From this significant episode, we intend to investigate within the debate about the boundaries between humanity and animality, conceptions and conceptual transformations in gender, reproduction, and human sexuality.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

LEVAI, Giulia Bauab. Superanimal, infrahuman: animality and gender in the popular reading of biomedical practices in the First Republic. 2016. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas Campinas, SP.