Superanimal, infrahuman: animality and gender in the popular reading of biomedical practices in the First Republic

Author(s)

Giulia Bauab Levai

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2016-11-30

Examining board members

Nadia Farage; Alfredo Luiz Paes de Oliveira Suppia; Rodrigo Camargo de Godoi

• Advisor: Nadia Farage

Abstract

The purpose of this research 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. In that period, in which 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 other animals, promoted by endocrinological research. To do so, it focusus on a controversial episode in the history of medicine, registered in brazilian newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s: the case of doctor Serge Voronoff ¿ a french-russian surgeon, who developed a so-called rejuvenation method through the grafting of primate and simian¿s glands into human beings ¿ and his visitation to the capitals of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. From this significant episode, we attempt to investigate within the debate on the boundaries between humanity and animality, conceptions and conceptual changes relating to gender, reproduction, and human sexuality (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/25558-4 - Superanimal, infrahuman: animality and gender in the birth of endocrinology in Brazil
• Grantee: Giulia Bauab Levai
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master