MEMORIES OF AN ACADEMIC PATH: A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ENUNCIATION ACTOR’S IN ACADEMIC MEMORIALS

ABSTRACT

The academic memorial seems to be a privileged object to examine simulacra and values related to the ways of acting in the Brazilian academic environment. When writing it, the researcher-professor re-elaborates on his professional and intellectual path in order to meet an institutional requirement, since a lot of open examinations for the post of university professor in Brazil request the writing of an academic memorial. Taking this into consideration, this work aims to analyze the image produced by the candidate-enunciator in his memorials, based on the proposals developed by Discini (2003, 2015) and Fiorin (2004, 2015), in order to focus on the enunciation actor in the context of Greimasian-based semiotics. Academic memorials from different areas and colleges at the University of São Paulo are compared, making it possible to verify their differences and similarities in the use of textual and discourse procedures in the construction of the enunciation actor. As a result, we perceive the image of a bold, innovative, competitive and cooperative researcher-professor in academic memorials in the Biological Sciences and the image of a critical, creative and slightly nonconformist researcher-professor in academic memorials in the Human Sciences.

academic memorial; enunciation actor; discursive semiotics

RESUMO

O memorial acadêmico parece ser um objeto privilegiado para o exame de simulacros e valores relacionados aos modos de atuação no meio acadêmico brasileiro. Ao escrevê-lo, o professor-pesquisador reelabora seu percurso profissional e intelectual como resposta a uma exigência institucional, uma vez que, no Brasil, muitos concursos que fazem parte da carreira universitária solicitam a elaboração de um memorial acadêmico. Tendo isso em vista, estabelecemos como objetivo deste trabalho analisar a produção da imagem do enunciador-candidato dos memoriais, a partir das propostas de Discini (2003, 2015) e de Fiorin (2004, 2015), desenvolvidas para o tratamento do ator da enunciação no âmbito da semiótica de base greimasiana. Exemplares de diferentes áreas e faculdades da Universidade de São Paulo são comparados, o que permite a verificação de suas diferenças e de suas semelhanças quanto ao emprego de procedimentos textuais e discursivos na construção do ator da enunciação. Como resultado, depreendemos a imagem de um professor-pesquisador arrojado, inovador, competitivo e cooperativo nos memoriais das Biológicas e de um professor-pesquisador crítico, criativo e levemente desviante nos memoriais das Humanidades.

memorial acadêmico; ator da enunciação; semiótica discursiva

Introduction

There is an irreversible split underlying our memory between who we are now – while currently remembering, and who we were then – a supposedly remembered past. This is what Ecléa Bosi teaches us when, on retrieving Halbwachs’ reflections, she states that memory is work:

According to Halbwachs, the free, spontaneous, almost dreamlike character of memory is exceptional. Most of the time, remembering is not reliving, but redoing, reconstructing, rethinking past experiences with today’s images and ideas. Memory is not a dream, it is work. If this is so, the survival of the past “as it was” should be doubted, and so should the fact that it would occur in the unconsciousness of each subject. A recollection is an image constructed by the materials that are now available to us within the set of representations that populate our current consciousness. However clear the memory of an old fact seems to us, it is not the same image that we experienced in our childhood, because we are not the same as then and because our perception has changed; therefore, our ideas, our judgments of reality and value have changed as well. The mere fact of remembering the past, in the present, excludes the identity between the images of one and the other, and it proposes their difference in terms of point of view (BOSI, 1994, p. 55, our translation).¹

The work of memory, which the author refers to, consists in the constant act of redoing the first experience, based on the experiences lived in the present. Attempting to reconstruct another time, “the whole set of present notions plays a conditioning role that involuntarily forces us to evaluate (therefore, change) the content of our memories” (BOSI, p. 1994, p. 55). This re-elaboration work is related to Halbwachs’ notion of collective memory, which associates the individual’s memory with that of the groups he/she belongs to and the group’s memory with society’s memory. For the sociologist, memories occur within communities; therefore, they depend on the relationships that each individual establishes with different social groups. Thus, memory work is not conceived as something that can be done by an isolated individual: “Our memories remain collective, however, and are recalled to us through others even though only we were participants in the events or saw the things concerned. In reality, we are never alone” (HALBWACHS, 1980, p. 23). Although we do not intend to delve into the discussion about collective memory, we highlight some points that will be fundamental to the way we conceive the construction of memory in the academic memorials that form the corpus of our research.

The academic memorial, a genre that is grounded on the creative force of memory, does not escape the constraints of the present or even the work carried out at the present time, when the narration and the reconstruction process of the lived experience occur. In this genre, a researcher-professor re-elaborates, by means of writing, on his professional, intellectual and academic path in order to meet an institutional requirement, since a lot of open examinations for the post of university professor in Brazil – such as examinations for the posts of assistant professor, associate professor and full professor – ask researchers-professors to prepare an academic memorial which will even become the object of an inquiry by a board.

Thus, when analyzing the memorial, we cannot ignore this present institutional situation to which the memorial responds, since we find in this genre an enunciator who, inserted in an academic community, seeks to build for himself the thematic role of a researcher- professor and also to create the image of a competent professional for research and teaching. He aims to pass the examination with merit and to be highly evaluated by the examination board, to whom the text was written, and subsequently to be highly approved of by this community. We must, therefore, bear in mind that academic memorials do not only present the work of an individual memory, but they allow us to comprise a collective dimension of reworking the past. This means that what is remembered and forgotten correlates with the different groups each memorialist participates in and, among those groups, there are those linked to academic life, as mentioned before.

Based on these reflections, the aim of this work is to understand the image of the researcher-professor projected in the academic memorials, by examining a corpus of 26 texts, produced from the year 1990 on at the Education College; in the Language and Literature Course; at the Medicine School; and at the Biosciences Institute (all at USP). Although it is still little exploited by text and discourse scholars,² the academic memorial, for the reasons already mentioned, seems to be a privileged object to examine simulacra and values related to ways of doing and being, and thus also remembering and forgetting, which circulate in the Brazilian academic environment. In short, examining this genre does not only mean looking into each individual memory, but also understanding it as part of a collectivity and also as part of an academic memory, in circulation through language. As Bosi (1994, p. 56) points out: “The decisively socializing tool of memory is language [...]. The collective data regarded as an inherent language feature even penetrates the dream (limit situation of individual purity)”.

In order to constitute the material to be analyzed, firstly a large number of academic memorials were read in order to identify some general characteristics present in each major area (Human and Biological Sciences) and also some common features present in each particular course, college or institute in the areas. Next, some samples were selected and they were accurately examined in order to form the corpus for this research. The selected texts exemplify the main characteristics of the genre which seem to be mostly shared in the major areas.

To study the enunciator’s image projected in the academic memorials, the analysis is based on Discini’s (2003, 2015) and Fiorin’s (2004, 2015) proposals, which, within the scope of discoursive semiotics, cast a new look on the Aristotelian notion of ethos, understanding it from the concept of the enunciation actor. According to Benveniste (1995), by activating the language through an individual act of use, the enunciation establishes the I, the one who says I, and the you, the one whom the I addresses. In semiotics, the I and the you are understood as actants, enunciative positions generated by the discourse syntax, and they become actors in the enunciation when they get a semantic layer. As Fiorin (2004, p. 18, our translation) points out:

When we refer to “I” and “you”, we refer to enunciation actants, i.e., in positions within the enunciation scene, the one who speaks and the one whom the speaker speaks to. However, in the different texts, these positions are materialized and these actants become actors in the enunciation. The actor is a thematic-figurative embodiment of the actant.³

The semiotician also points to the fact that the analysis of the enunciation actor is carried out not during the search for the author in the flesh, but during the search for the discoursive author, apprehended on grounds of the marks left in the enunciation that allow the reconstruction of the enunciator’s image. As we read in Greimas and Courtés (1982, p. 8):

From the point of view of the production* of discourse, a distinction can be made between the subject of the enunciation (which is an implicit actant logically presupposed by the utterance*) and the actor of the enunciation. An example of the latter case would be, for example, “Baudelaire” as defined by the totality of this discourses.

Without avoiding dialogue with other discourse and text theorists, especially with Maingueneau (1995), who defines ethos as the enunciator’s character, body and voice (tone), Discini (2003, 2015) understands it as a way of being and living in the world, taken from a discoursive totality as an image of the enunciator. By conceiving ethos as what is produced by the recurrence particular way of saying something, the author associates it with the notion of style. It is precisely through the analysis of style that this discoursive simulacrum is apprehended. Therefore, style is understood as:

[…] mode of a given subject´s presence in the enunciation act presupposed to a totality of utterances, it refers to a discoursive subject, who leaves traces of his identity in what he says, through his own way of saying, which supposes ethical and affective peculiarities in the relationship with the world (DISCINI, 2015, p. 87, our translation).⁴

Taking this into account, it is possible to conceive ethos as a subject of style, which “brings to light the discoursive category of person syntactically presupposed to a totality, as well as semantically and tensively ‘incarnated’” (DISCINI, 2015, p. 87).

The investigation of the enunciation actor in the academic memorials will be based on the semiotic theory of Greimasian orientation and its current developments. In order to examine its construction, it is necessary to go through all the levels of the generative path of meaning, a theoretical model developed in semiotics to study meaning on the content plane. This path is divided into levels, which are oriented from the simplest and abstract to the most complex and concrete: fundamental level (at which minimal semantic opposition is established), narrative level (at which the narrative is organized from the point of view of a subject) and discoursive level (at which the enunciation subject seizes the narrative). In this work, the analysis of the discoursive level and textualization will be emphasized.

All the levels of the path are methodologically structured within a syntax and semantics framework, and the discoursive level is no exception. The study of discoursive syntax, which consists of the description of discoursivization mechanisms (actorialization, temporalization, spatialization), makes it possible to observe the effects of a sense of proximity and distance, of subjectivity and objectivity, among others, produced in the enunciation and they directly interfere in the relationship between communication partners (enunciator and enunciatee) and, consequently, in the image projected by the researcher-professor. The book As astúcias da enunciação (Ruses of Enunciation), by José Luiz Fiorin (1996), will be the main basis for this stage of the work.

The examination of discoursive semantics proves to be pertinent, since it concerns the two levels of meaning materialization – thematization and figurativization – which provide the candidate actor with a sensory and ideological layer. The values assumed by a subject, at the narrative level, appear as themes, at the discoursive level. Thus, the themes overlap the narrative schemes and the figures may or may not overlap the themes. Barros (2002, p. 116-117) shows that the themes classify and organize the significant reality and the figures particularize and concretize the thematic and abstract discourses, by establishing the intersemiotic relationship between the natural world (seen as a semiotic) and language. The qualifier figurative is defined by Greimas and Courtés (1982, p. 117), as “given content (of a natural language, for example) when that content corresponds to something on the expression level of the natural semiotic system (or semiotics of the natural world)”. It is, therefore, through the discoursive semantics that one has access to the most sensorial dimension of the text and, as Fiorin (1998) shows in Linguagem e ideologia (Language and Ideology), also to its social determinations. Discursive syntax is the field of the most conscious manipulation, whereas semantics, comprising thematization and figurativization, is the field of unconscious determinations and, therefore, that of ideological determinations.

Finally, textualization is understood as “a pause in this trajectory (the generative path of meaning), at any given moment of the process, and deviates it towards manifestation” (GREIMAS; COURTÉS, 1982, p. 341); therefore, it concerns the semiosis, meeting the content plane, whose simulacrum, as mentioned, is established by the generative path of meaning, and the expression plane. Resources such as punctuation, paragraph organization, chapter structuring, among others, will, therefore, be understood as part of the textualization. We will also make brief comments about the edition of the academic memorials, without losing sight of the central question of our research: the production of the enunciator’s image. As shown by Fiorin (2004), this is a pertinent approach to investigate the construction of this enunciation actor:

Where are the enunciator’s ethos marks in the discoursive materiality of totality? Within this totality, recurrences are sought in any compositional element of the discourse or text: in the choice of the subject, in the construction of the characters, in the chosen genres, in the level of the used language, in the rhythm, in the figurativization, in the choice of themes, in isotopies etc. In a newspaper, the image of the enunciator is shown even in the size of the print, in the number of columns comprised by the headline, and so on (FIORIN, 2004, p. 21, our translation).⁵

It must also be said that autobiographical genres have certain specificities regarding the examination of ethos, as it will be shown next. As it is common in autobiographies, in the analyzed academic memorials, a first person narrator, set in the present, reports what his past would have been. This means that the narrator and the actor of the narrated story are inserted in the text by means of the person´s enunciative disengagement procedures (FIORIN, 1996), thus we have two projected I’s, the one who narrates here and now, and one who lives the narrated story there and then. It is what we see in the excerpt presented below, in which verbs such as I lived refer to the actor’s experience of the narrated story in the past, while I keep refers to the narrator’s present: “I was born on a coffee farm and from an early age I lived with the smell of coffee beans drying on the ground – I still keep this smell in my mind [...]” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 1, emphasis added, our translation)⁶. The use of the first person to refer to these two subjects is one of the features of the discursive syntax⁷ that contributes to create the identification between central actor and narrator, typical of autobiographies.⁸

The identification effect between the narrator and the enunciator is usually produced in autobiographies and in the studied memorials it occurs through engagement procedures, which makes the narrator introduce himself as the author of the text, as in: “As I wrote earlier, we learned together, because the world of plants is a continuous learning – there are no barriers, there is no end” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 5, our translation)⁹. The signature we find at the end of many academic memorials is another element that contributes to this: who is signing, the narrator or the enunciator? Therefore, the signature also results from an engagement procedure, understood as a neutralization of the oppositions that constitute the categories of person, time and space. In these examples, there is a type of engagement procedure that confuses the levels of the narrator and the enunciator, a presupposed imminent element, putting them in close proximity (FIORIN, 1996).

The identification effect between the enunciator and actor of the narrated story is produced by identifying the name on the memorial cover and the name of the actor of the narrated story, and it is reinforced by the list of publications attributed to the actor of the narrated story as well as to the enunciator, among other strategies. We also emphasize that the title of the texts, which mentions the academic memorial genre, an autobiographical genre, corroborates this effect.

These identification effects between the enunciator, narrator and actor of the narrated story are relevant to the examination of the enunciator’s ethos in the genre in question. As it will be seen next, due to the identification effects, the way the narrator shows up in the text and what is said about the actor of the narrated story tend to interfere in the enunciator’s image. It cannot be said that the image created for the actor in the narrated story corresponds exactly to the enunciator’s ethos; for example, if the narrator states all the time that the actor of the narrated story is the best at everything he does (“I always got the highest grades, I was the smartest in the classroom”), it is possible to create an image of arrogance rather than efficiency for the enunciator.

However, if the actor of the narrated story is presented as someone who always discovers or creates something new, the reiteration of figures and themes related to the novelty can contribute to confer features of an innovative scientist to the enunciator. This means that the competences, affections and actions attributed to the actor of the narrated story participate in the construction of the ethos due to the identification effect between the actor of the narrated story and the enunciator, although this participation is not necessarily direct.

Next, we will proceed to the analysis of our corpus, by means of which we will seek both to verify how the enunciator’s ethos is produced, i.e., through which textual and discoursive resources it is created, and to verify whether these resources as well as their effects remain the same in academic memorials from different areas. Therefore, we decided to examine the academic memorials of the Bioscience areas and the Human areas separately, so that in the end we can develop some more general considerations about the construction of the enunciator´s image in the academic memorial.

Academic Memorials from the Biosciences Institute and the Medicine School

We will start the analysis by focusing on the academic memorials written at the Biosciences Institute (BI) and at the Medicine School (MS) of USP. Some relevant aspects for the construction of the enunciator’s ethos will be examined, such as the oscillation of a way of being marked simultaneously by scientificity and sensitivity towards the world; by the innovation theme; by the construction of the singularity effect; and by the cooperation theme.

We have already said that academic memorials seek to develop a professional, intellectual and academic path, which is noted by the predominance of themes and figures linked to the candidate’s professional and intellectual life, as we can see below:

Thus, I intend to continue to develop teaching, research and extension activities at the Department. of Ecology (BI, USP), to broaden approaches and partnerships and to encourage human resources training. I aim to raise Brazilian people’s educational level and awareness, but without forgetting the publications in specialized journals with a high level of impact (POMPÊO, 2007, p. 10, emphasis added, our translation).¹⁰

The reiteration of figures and themes specific to the research, teaching and university universe (“teaching”, “research and extension activities”; “Ecology Department”; “BI-USP”; “educational level”; “training”; “partnerships”; “publications in specialized journals with a high level of impact”) builds the candidate-enunciator belonging to the academic community, constituting an essential element to produce the thematic role of the researcher-professor for this enunciator.

This role is reinforced by the dominant use of the formally registered educational standard of the Portuguese language, by the use of metalanguage specific to each scientific area and sub-area (“sandstone caves”), by the abundant use of toponyms (“municipality of Altinópolis”, “UFSCar”), chrononyms (“in September 1981”) and anthroponyms (“Nelson da Silva César Junior”) when reconstructing the remembered past as well as mentioning documents attached to the text, proving the researcher-professor’s performance throughout his career (“DOC1”; “DOC2”, etc.). All these resources reinforce the enunciator’s image of competence, capable of presenting his life in an objective, detached, detailed, organized and documented way. It seems that the account of his life is the result of a well-founded research and it is presented to the enunciatee according to the rigor, didactics and clarity that a researcher-professor is expected to have.

Such resources are also responsible for producing the effect of reality, i.e., the illusion that the narrated events actually occurred. This is exemplified in the following excerpt:

I, along with chemist Nelson da Silva César Junior, were the first to explore the sandstone caves in the municipality of Altinópolis, a study presented at the 1st São Paulo Symposium on Speleology, which took place at UFSCar, in September 1981, an event organized by GAE (POMPÊO, 2007, p. 4-5, emphasis added, our translation).¹¹

Despite the extensive use of strategies that produce an effect of objectivity and scientificity, we also find in the analyzed texts the recurrent use of a passionate or sensorial lexicon, of punctuation with expressive impact, among other resources, that contribute to create an image of a researcher-professor who is sensitive to the world. The enunciator depicts himself as someone who also has a passionate relationship with his work. Teaching, research, academic experiences are conceived as sources of pleasure, capable of altering the states of mind of the actor of the narrated story, the narrator and the enunciator. As the following excerpts show, the academic memorials in question exploit this dimension of affectivity quite forcefully, which is further reinforced by the use of the enunciative disengagement procedure of the enunciation and the utterance (FIORIN, 1994) with regard to the person: the narrator is the self that tells his own story.

My fascination for transplantation arose when I first came in contact with it. Rationally, this deep interest in transplantation can be justified because it is a subspecialty that can be integrated with Nephrology, Medical Clinic and Immunology. In addition, it is a really passionate and engaging challenge that makes it possible to transform the cruel natural evolution of a chronic disease, which still has no cure for, into a more favorable evolution through the transplant of a normal organ (NORONHA, 2010, p. III, emphasis added, our translation).¹²

And that’s how I met Professor Nanuza Luíza de Menezes!!! Professor Paulo Pasquareli took me to Professor Nanuza’s office, who welcomed us joyfully and optimistically. I remember it as if it was today! And that was the beginning of my relationship with the wonderful person, the great researcher, the researcher who has “the generosity of knowledge” and the responsible person for my academic life (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 1, emphasis added, our translation).¹³

The pleasure felt by the narrator in the present or throughout the path of the actor of the narrated story in the past seems to be strongly related to the fulfillment of a desire, since the career is often understood as something that associates the subject with objects desired since childhood. The vocation, which so many academic memorials deal with, concerns this primordial desire that guides the candidate’s path. For example, Marques toys with the idea of having been born a scientist, while Latronico expresses his vocation for teaching: “I refer you to my early childhood believing that I was born a scientist, or at least very curious” (MARQUES, 2007, p. 2, our translation)¹⁴; “I feel totally gifted to teaching [...]. I play this role with enthusiasm, responsibility and great pleasure” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 23, emphasis added, our translation)¹⁵. Therefore, we can notice the presence of a thematic isotopy concerning vocation in the memorial genre, which is figurativized in different ways in each text, producing the image of a gifted professor and researcher.

Another recurring theme is innovation. Under varied figures, such as discovery, invention, pioneering spirit, among others, innovation is seen as an euphoric break in the state of things, as it can be noticed in the following comments: “[...] pioneering work in Brazil at the time” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 2, our translation)¹⁶; “So far we have described nine new species of monocotylids [...]” (MARQUES, 2007, p. 13, our translation)¹⁷; “[...] In 2002 I published the first study of immunomodulatory skin cancer treatment in Brazil” (FESTA NETO, 2009, p. 87, our translation)¹⁸; “[...] originally obtained findings” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 60, our translation)¹⁹; “[...] unprecedented application” (NORONHA, 2010, p. VI, our translation)²⁰. Therefore, the inchoactive aspects of the experiences are valued in these academic memorials.

Both the repeated inchoateness and the textual passionalization or even the use of the enunciative person’s disengagement procedure in the enunciation and in the utterance (FIORIN, 1994), which we have already briefly discussed, contribute to the production of the enunciator’s singularization effect as he has an unparalleled relationship with his profession, because he is affective, dedicated and marked by innovation, by the production of something unique, unprecedented. Such singularization effect is extremely prominent in the studied memorials, and there are even other resources that reinforce it. The incorporation of the personal life, through themes and figures of private and family life, for example, contributes to turn the actor of the narrated story and also the narrator and the enunciator into subjects who have a specific, singular trajectory, different from the others, as it can be noticed when Noronha says she is a doctor who also likes bossa nova and classical music.

Despite my strict upbringing, I was able to enjoy myself throughout most of my childhood and adolescence playing on the street, which was possible at that time, riding a bicycle or flying kites which I made myself. Due to my sister’s influence, my idol, I used to listen to bossa nova and classical music (NORONHA, 2010, p. I, our translation).²¹

The tone – or “the enunciator’s vocal dimension unveiled by the discourse” (FIORIN, 2004, p. 19) – used to tell the past is not always the same, and this is another strategy that acts in order to make the enunciator unique. There are texts which are grandiloquent or ironic, while others are more nostalgic or restrained. Comparing the two following excerpts, we can notice how different they are, since the first one takes on a more poetic tone, while the second is not so serious: “I was born in the capital city of São Paulo and I do not think I had a different childhood from the immigrants’ grandchildren who were also born here. Kites, marbles, soccer, splashing across puddles after the rain” (FESTA NETO, 2009, our translation)²²; “It was great [to go back to the medical clinic], because I never had doubts again that general practicing was not what I wanted to do” (CHAUI-BERLINK, 2006, p. 8, our translation)²³.

Particularly at the Bioscience Institute, the use of different types of humor is recurrent, which allows the construction of diversified simulacra for the enunciator. The text by Chauí-Berlink, which has just been quoted, is full of irony and even self-irony producing the image of an intelligent enunciator with an agile and sharp mind. It is different from other forms of humor that point to a lighter, milder, friendlier ethos, as in: “At the time, Ubatuba was very different from what it is today, but it rained just as much” (MARQUES, 2007, p. 2, our translation)²⁴.

Also, regarding the diversity of tones, it is noted that there are more formal texts, which reveal a more serious, reserved researcher-professor, while others often include slang and more popular vocabulary; thus, they create oral communication effects, mixing standards and registers. Such a way of using the language allows the understanding of a more relaxed, more expansive ethos. To exemplify this, we can compare two ways of presenting critical opinions, the first is more restrained whereas the second is more passionate:

In the discussion about Clinical Research, it is vital to reflect critically upon its performance, given the strong influence that the Pharmaceutical Industry exerts upon predominantly academic activities (NORONHA, 2010, p. XXVII, our translation).²⁵

And stop “screwing” students! (CHAUI-BERLINK, 2006, p. 53, our translation)²⁶.

Diversity can also be noticed when editing texts. There is a wide range of possibilities to exploit such as various fonts, paper quality, use of images, font color and paper color, etc. As a result, each memorial gains particularly unique features and the final edition constitutes another element that strengthens the enunciator’s singularity effect.

Despite diversity, we can notice a prevailing trend in the edition of the texts of each course or institute. At the Biosciences Institute, the edition of the academic memorials is similar to that of theses and dissertations: in general, the covers are black or blue, with black, gold or silver printing on them; sheets of legal or parchment paper size A4; Arial 11 or Times New Roman 12 font in the body of the text; etc. However, in the Medicine School, the academic memorials do not follow closely the pattern that was established in the academic environment. In the studied memorials from the Medicine School, visual and graphic resources are greatly exploited. There is a wide range of font types and colors (not only Arial and Times New Roman are found) as well as paper types and colors (texture and weight). In addition, photographs, graphs and tables are also inserted, as it can be noticed in Figure 1.

Figure 1
– Academic Memorial from the Medicine School

We can say that the academic memorials from the Medicine School are similar to hardcover books bound as brochures with images on the cover, among other elements. In short, they are quite different from the edition of a thesis or dissertation, except for keeping the standard size and format of the editions (A4). Therefore, concerning the edition of such “memorial” object, we can say that they are slightly distant from academic practices and closer to editorial practices. Despite diversification, although not wholly, they assume a new pattern: that of the book that circulates in the publishing market. This contributes to creating an image of efficiency for the enunciator and a certain type of professionalism aligned with modern technology and the market. It points to a bold person. At the same time, the enunciator’s singularization is not neglected, since each of the books/memorials has their own specificities.

Turning into an efficient, singular and bold professional, this enunciator may stand out, be competitive, a term used several times in their texts to present the qualities of a laboratory, of a researcher, etc. For example, in Latronico, the word appears three times over just two pages: “Over the past 15 years, I have contributed to the implementation of a competitive research laboratory [...]” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 1, emphasis added, our translation)²⁷; “The well-structured internship program and the interaction with very interested and competitive colleagues [...] encouraged me to prepare for the medical residency exams” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 2, emphasis added, our translation)²⁸; “In February 1989, after a competitive process I was admitted to take on one of the four residency vacancies in the Endocrinology and Metabology Discipline, under prof. Dr. Bernardo Léo Wajchenberg’s leadership” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 2, emphasis added, our translation)²⁹.

As we can see in the excerpts, competitiveness is a highly positive quality in the academic memorials from the Medicine School and it reflects the candidate’s quantified production thoroughly. In addition to the traditional production indicators, most of the examined samples display different kinds of graphs (pie, bars and others) to show how much the candidate has published, how much he is quoted, how many students he has taught, how much his students have published, how many courses he has given, among other data.

Quantification is widely exploited in order to value researches and professors who the memorialist has had contact with throughout his life: “On that occasion I was admitted as an intern in Professor Dr. George P. Chrousos’s laboratory, one of the greatest researchers in pediatric endocrinology with about 800 publications and several international awards” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 2, our translation)³⁰. On showing the academic relevance of his advisor and of other professionals whom he works or has worked with, the researcher-professor also proves his own competence, since not every doctor is admitted to work as a partner in certain laboratories. By means of quantification, the candidate’s insertion in national and, sometimes, international research is affirmed, without failing to resort to modesty. Competence is also strengthened when letters of thanks from students and patients are also added to the academic memorials, and they can be found in the body of the text or in the attachments of the memorials.

However, it is interesting to note that a more explicit construction of a positive image of the narrated story actor, which is reflected in the narrator and the enunciator, does not seem to be evaluated in the same way in the two institutions we are dealing with in this part of the article. In the academic memorials from the Medicine School, we find passages in which the narrator praises the actor of the narrated story in a less veiled way, although even in these cases the praise is mediated, as it is based on what others say. This is what happens when Latronico (2010, p. 8, our translation) states that his publications in medical journals with high scientific impact: “definitely mark my name in the international research scenario”³¹. In the following excerpt there is another example: “With this I achieved respect in this area, being considered a very good professor by students and a good lecturer” (NORONHA, 2010, p. XVII, our translation)³².

Comparing the texts from the Biosciences Institute and the Medicine School, we can say that those from the Medicine School reveal strengthened competitiveness. Especially in the academic memorials written for open examinations for the post of full professor, there are passages regarding future plans which usually seem to be promises. This shows that the enunciatee is more explicitly and openly manipulated than in other academic memorials. Constructing a very positive image of the enunciator is a characteristic of the genre, a peculiar feature present in most texts of the professors who aim at the post of full professor in Medicine. As we can see in Latronico (2010), objects of value, such as the development of innovative methodologies, are openly displayed as pragmatic sanction to be given to the board and the scientific community if the candidate passes. This may be indicative of the different role this examination plays in both institutions.

As a Full Professor, I aim to continue contributing to the development of the Endocrinology and Metabology Discipline at the Medical School of the University of São Paulo. In the field of research, I plan to foster the development of innovative scientific methodologies in the areas of clinical and molecular genetics to investigate endocrine disorders. I will actively participate in the construction of new national and international scientific partnerships in order to increase local scientific production and improve medical and non-medical professional training, further strengthening the consolidated leadership image of our institution. I am committed to enthusiastically and interestedly carrying out my teaching and extension activities, and to helping to provide quality medical care and excellent medical education. Finally, I promise to hold this position with responsibility and social commitment following the same promises made at the beginning of my career as a doctor (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 1, emphasis added, our translation).³³

Another aspect that should be highlighted in the academic memorials from the two institutions in question is the fact that they often deal with the partnerships and collaborations established by the actor of the narrated story throughout his career. The reference to laboratories is quite central in texts of both institutions; in addition, great evidence is given to national and international collaborations in the examined copies, and they even constitute a specific chapter in some academic memorials: “Formation of Cooperative Groups” (FESTA NETO, 2009). In several moments, the actor of the narrated story becomes the figurativization of a collective actor: the laboratory or the research group.

In the following excerpts, the use of we confirms a viewpoint of science and academic life inclined towards a collective action in some aspects: “This was an enriching period, as we analyzed and discussed the structural similarities and differences of wood” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 2, our translation)³⁴; “In 1990, in association with Professor José Antonio Sanches Jr., we planned and created the Cutaneous Oncology Outpatient Clinic” (FESTA NETO, 2009, emphasis added, our translation)³⁵. It is important to stress that the use of such pronouns often comprises the students, seen as partners in the process of knowledge construction. In the Biosciences Institute, there are academic memorials where the I and the “we” are often used closely together, always with a small advantage to the former. However, this does not occur in the copies from the Medicine School, where the we appears quite a lot, but at specific moments. The trend to value cooperative work is registered in the texts from the Biosciences Institute and, as a consequence, it affects the production of the enunciator’s ethos.

Therefore, it seems that the enunciator in the academic memorials from the Biosciences Institute and the Medicine School at USP projects an image of a researcher-professor who dominates the scientific production, who seasons objectivity and detachment fairly effectively, who is singular, bold, competitive and cooperative. Although these characteristics are not equally distributed between the two courses, or among the different academic memorials, we can identify them as trends in this great area because of their reiteration.

Academic Memorials from the Language and Literature Course and Education College

We will now deal with the academic memorials produced at the Language and Literature Course (Faculty of Philosophy, Language and Literature and Human Sciences) and at Education College, both at USP, as already mentioned. To meet this target, we will address some aspects that seem to be relevant in the construction of this set of texts, such as the production of scientificity, of the passionate dimension and of the singularity effect, as well as the oscillation between the use of more poetic and more analytical language, and the elaboration of the inadequacy theme.

In the examined academic memorials of the Human Sciences, it is noted that there is the recurrence of figures and themes concerning the academic life (“associate professorship thesis”; “research”; “hypotheses”; “lectures”; “texts”; “quotations”) and also the dominance of the formally registered educated standard of the Portuguese language as well as the use of appropriate metalanguage to each area and to each sub-area (“inflection systems of a language”; “anaphoric system”), building the image of the enunciator as a researcher-professor, as it can be noticed in the following excerpts:

The Associate Professorship thesis “Brazilian Portuguese: a language focused on discourse” can be said to represent the conclusion of a sequence of research on the hypothesis that the characteristics of the inflection systems of a language are responsible for its sentence structure and for the distribution and interpretation of the integral forms of its anaphoric system (NEGRÃO, 2004, p. 50, emphasis added, our translation).³⁶

In mid-1993, SENAC invited me to deliver a lecture in Salvador at the release of the book Africa: fashion, culture and tradition, which gathered texts by Fábio Ávila and Fábio Leite (and some quotations from my thesis) (219), about photos of African clothing taken by Maureen Bisilliat in Abijan (PETTER, 2008, p. 24, emphasis added, our translation).³⁷

These excerpts also present toponyms (“Abijan”), anthroponyms (“Maureen Bisilliat”) and chrononyms (“mid-1993”), as well as the reference to the documentation attached to the text (“219”), which provides the account with an objectivity and reality effect and confers the image of competence on the enunciator, since she reveals herself as a researcher who is capable of presenting the data in an objective, clear, detached and organized way; therefore, she meets the expectations attributed to the academic community.

As in the texts in the Biological Sciences, the resources that produce effects of objectivity and scientificity are blended with those that appeal to sensory and passionate effects. The semantic discoursive choices result in the iconization³⁸ of the remembered past and also in the construction of the narrator’s affective bond with that past.

Many think they were born predestined to great deeds. I was born in Birigui, a very small town, without any predestination to heights. In my childhood, I was an ordinary boy. I had a typical childhood in the countryside: I played, went out, went to the local public school. My family was very big: cousins, uncles... The image of our grandpa hovered over all of us. I finished fundamental school and then I went to high school. I was a very good student. Maybe because at home I was brought up with a deep sense of duty (FIORIN, 1994, p. 8, emphasis added, our translation).³⁹

In the quoted excerpt from Fiorin’s memorial, for example, the narrator refers to his grandfather as grandpa, something that reveals his origins and the affectivity that underlies the relationships between grandson and grandfather. In addition, the narrator employs the first person singular to refer to himself and the boy who he was in the past, which also contributes to strengthen affectivity. This more sensitive dimension emerges not only when he focuses on his childhood, but also when he refers to his academic and intellectual work, confirming the similarities between the examined memorials of the human and biological areas, as the following quotations can prove:

Anyway, I can see a thread there, a thread that seems to weave this trajectory, that sews and brings facts together and gives them some sense. Attending science centers, studying science, studying science teaching, researching science museums. That is where I found myself! (MARANDINO, 2012, p. 4, emphasis added, our translation)⁴⁰.

But I soon developed a passion – senseless, like all true passions – for teaching⁴¹ (CARVALHO, 2013, emphasis added, our translation)⁴².

In the excerpts mentioned above, it seems that the passionate and sensory dimension overflows into the present of the narration; it is not only the I of the past that expresses his feelings through an exclamation when he realizes that he has found his way, or when he expresses his passion for teaching, but also the I that narrates. Thus, by different resources – lexical choice, punctuation, etc. – his pleasurable relationship with most of what constitutes academic work is being established in a persistent way.

As we have seen in the academic memorials from the Biosciences Institute and the Medicine School, the satisfaction relieved by the narrator in the present is related, among other aspects, to the fulfillment of an objective. The academic career is presented as the possibility of meeting a target which was in some cases defined in childhood, and as the element that guides the subject´s actions throughout his path, even though there might have been interruptions and changes along his path, as mentioned in the academic memorials. Therefore, the vocation theme, which produces the image of a dedicated enunciator to research and/or teaching, is also present in the Human Sciences, as we can notice below:

I could start my narrative by saying that the option for education was not a mature and adult decision. From my parents’ account and from some memories of my childhood, I know that at that time I decided to provide the simplest people I had met with the opportunity to read and write. [...] (QUADROS, 2006, p.10, our translation)⁴³.

In the academic memorials of the Human Sciences, one striking element concerning the exploitation of sensitiveness is the use of a more literary language, as we can notice below: “What really matters is the feel of the wooden or tin case, in which pencils, pens and dreams were kept, the smell of the eraser, the white apron with the blue inscription Q.A., Quinzinho do Amaral embroidered on it, a uniform to be kept clean” (DISCINI, 2002, p. 8, our translation)⁴⁴. Through a kind of hyperfocalization, Discini recovers her school experience mostly by means of the sensory qualities of the objects (the whiteness of the apron, the tactile sensation of the case) and a suspension effect of time going by, expressed by a decrease in verb presence and the use of the present tense as in matters.

We could assume that passages with a more literary tone would appear only in the academic memorials of the Language and Literature Course, but we can notice that they are also quite frequent in the copies from the Education College:

I was born facing the Atlantic (this terrifying and fascinating sea / death, at the same time), in a hospital at the Port of Santos (“Of All Saints”). The pier is always a safe place on land that throws us to the uncertainty of the sea, to its liquid concreteness. On a Wednesday (midweek), at midnight (in the middle of the day and of the night). Time going by from one day to another, in the domineering moonlit darkness brightly starred by raindrops-constellations, on October 23, 1963. A rainy night when my father slipped into a water puddle on the way to the hospital, those puddles that flood the sidewalks and the streets and that hide their depth in the surface (SANTOS, 2003, p. 7, our translation).⁴⁵

In this highly iconic excerpt, attention is drawn to the great appeal to the sensorial aspects of the scene (luminosity, darkness, liquidity, concreteness, etc.) and also the juxtaposition of terms with opposite meanings, such as terrifying/fascinating; safe place on land/sea uncertainties; in the middle of the day/in the middle of the night; darkness/brightly starred; depth/surface; raindrops/constellation (here the opposite relationship is perhaps less evident, but it is about approximating concentration and expansion). In tensive terms (ZILBERBERG, 2006), there is a semantic leap, in which one moves from one polarity to another through hyperacceleration, i.e, a gradual path is not followed, as in: darkness-gloom-dim light-brightness.

The impact of interval suppression, which approximates extremes, is great for the enunciator and for the enunciatee as well, captured in the text through affectivity. We can also mention alliterations and assonances as responsible for the sensitive apprehension of the enunciation subject, as in sea/death; terrifying/fascinating, etc. All these elements contribute to the construction of a thematic role for the enunciator that flirts with the writer’s role.

More analytical passages are opposed to moments of sensitive intensification:

I attended most of the elementary education at Colégio Fish. Then I went to Colégio Anderson, in Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro in the late 70s and early 80s. Science classes were very special there. We had large, well-equipped laboratories, and practical classes were common, especially in the ginásio – the last grades of the elementary school.

Probably influenced by the experimental and empiricist approach in science education and by the fact that it had once been a vocational school [...].

It is not easy to trace back the beginning of the science fairs in Brazil [...]. As Myriam Krasilchik tells us in her famous book “The teacher and science teaching”, from 1987 [...].

This experimental emphasis is still present today, in addition to the different theoretical influences from later historical moments. It was remodeled from the new historical and political realities of the subsequent years in the 1990s and it continues to be reframed in discussions about improving science teaching in the 21st century (MARANDINO, 2012, p. 3, our translation).⁴⁶

She gave me a notebook, wrote on the first line ‘a-e-i-o-u’ and told me to copy those letters on the entire page. Then she marked it and set a new exercise, on a small board this time. The following year, when I started the first grade, I was able to read and write very well (despite her traditional approach to classes and her total unfamiliarity with the psychogenesis of written language!). What would the cautious scholars of didactic-methodological updated theories say about her? How is a literacy teacher trained? (CARVALHO, 2013, our translation).⁴⁷

In Marandino’s excerpts (2012), we can see the construction of the researcher’s ethos as a specialist in science education, not because the narrator (identified with the enunciator) explicitly states that this is her specialty at different moments in the text, but essentially because she tells a short story about science teaching based on her own school experience. In addition, she uses several resources typical of science teaching, such as examining an individual case in the light of historical and social facts (relating the emphasis on laboratory classes to the “experimental and empiricist movement of science education”), the use of specific metalanguage, the foundation by means of bibliographic references, the analysis of impacts of the past on the present. All these elements contribute to the construction of the thematic role of the enunciator as a competent scientist and researcher.

In Carvalho’s (2013) excerpt, on the other hand, as the narrator tells his past, he raises the question of how a teacher is trained, an issue that has been recurrent since the beginning of his text and leads to more specific questions, such as “How is a literacy teacher trained?”, which refers to the passage about his sister’s role in his literacy. Thus, a memorial constitutes an opportunity to reflect upon important issues to educators, strengthening the thematic role of the enunciator as an education researcher.

It is interesting to note that this more scientific attitude towards the past is combined with a quite poetic tone in a few passages, making the raised question a little more complex. To show the differences between the method in which he was taught how to read and write and another method, most likely influenced by the figure of Paulo Freire, Aquino (2009) uses the words mostly found in each method. Through this metonymy, he confers corporeal aspects to very abstract ideas:

Like every child in the early 1970s, I was taught to read and write using the irrefutable Caminho Suave method. At that time, the bee had not yet been transmuted into love; orange into liberty; the nail into the universe. We lived in a world of flat immediate surfaces: elephant, knife, monkey, ship, egg, duck, cheese and mouse (AQUINO, 2009, p. 4, our translation).⁴⁸

Observation and analysis of life itself from a theoretical framework seem to be much less frequent in the academic memorials from the Language and Literature Course than in those from the Education College. In the texts from the Language and Literature Course, reflections upon past life are mostly centered on the meaning of life then. Choices made and paths taken throughout life are discussed, focusing, among other aspects, mainly on their coherence with the whole. The memorial is explicitly presented by the narrator as an opportunity to reconstruct his identity. Although this issue also arises in some texts from the Education College, it is less open for debate in these samples. Another feature that deserves to be commented is the recurrent theme of the search for the meaning of life which merges with the search for the meaning of the narrative produced in the memorial particularly in the copies from the Language and Literature Course. In most of the academic memorials from the Language and Literature Course, thinking about life does not seem, therefore, to be seen as distinct from thinking about its organization as an account.

Therefore, a metalinguistic level of commentary on the memorialist writing is established, as we can see in Negrão (2004, p.5, our translation): “When I was engaged in building my memorial, I realized the strange game between the certainties that generated some choices and the casual events that led me to unimagined paths in my academic career”⁴⁹.

At this metalinguistic level, where the narrator is quite detached from his narration, many comments are made about the memorial genre, a feature which is not as recurrent in the Education College. Fiorin (1994), for example, develops a kind of introduction in his memorial in which he discusses the characteristics of the genre: “A memorial is a text in which facts that are chosen to be remembered are registered. This term is derived from memory, the faculty which preserves and remembers past states of consciousness” (FIORIN, 1994, p. 4, our translation)⁵⁰. The presence of reflections upon the act of narrating itself also draws stands out in the texts from the Language and Literature Course, which is interrupted to become the object with which the narrator interacts: “How to tell, even briefly, all that I could see, hear and think, in terms of art, over the time I was away? I confess I am perplexed, not knowing where to start. However, as it is necessary, I will suggest something” (ARRIGUCCI Jr., 1990, p. 20, our translation)⁵¹.

Identified with the narrator, the enunciator assumes, therefore, the thematic role of the researcher of linguistic and literary facts. This is perhaps one of the main differences between the academic memorials produced at the Education College and those from the Language and Literature Course: in the former texts, the emphasis is on the analysis of life as part of the history of education; in the latter, the emphasis is on the examination of life as language, as narrative. This confirms that the researcher- professor is expected to have some skills that are specific to his area.

As we have already observed when analyzing the texts from the Biosciences Institute and the Medicine School, there is a certain stylistic flexibility in the academic memorial genre, especially if we take into account the sphere which it belongs to, the academic sphere. In addition to using the enunciative disengagement procedure in the enunciation to the discoursivization of the person (FIORIN, 1996) – causing, therefore, the individuation effect –, each memorial seems to look for its own voice among the others, as it can be noted when comparing two excerpts belonging to the introductory part of academic memorials from the Education College:

Here, I assume the concern raised by Hobsbawm in Interesting Times. I restrict the account to my professional trajectory. Personal life will not be referred to, admitting my discomfort with the autobiographical genre. I limit the writing even more. I restrict my account to the last 16 years, when I started teaching at the university level. This choice is made because I intend to discuss only my intellectual activity in the field of the history of education. The self-imposed limits ban the presentation of facts experienced before 1987 (however, they are sometimes referred to in footnotes), and they support an approach that focus on historical and conceptual reflection on research topics. Academic research and the groups associated with it are thus at the center of the narrative, which does not prevent the activities related with teaching and extension from being articulated in the text (VIDAL, 2004, p. 4, our translation).⁵²

Images come up in my memory today as insects swarm in the late afternoon at the sun set when saying goodbye to sunlight and welcoming dusk: twilight (SANTOS, 2003, p. 7, our translation).⁵³

The diversity of tones used in the excerpts - more analytical and detached in the first case, more poetic and closer in the second – is reflected in other aspects. We will not comment on all the points that would be relevant, but we would like to draw attention to the fact that Vidal’s text does not deal with childhood or periods before starting to teach at a higher level; moreover, it tries to conceal personal interferences in professional choices at the most. On the other hand, Santos’s text focuses on his boyhood days, tells about the period when he worked as a firefighter, talks about his children, his marriages, etc. Therefore, the differences in tone are corroborated by the variability of thematic and figurative isotopies, among other resources.

As for editing, it is noted that in the academic memorials in the Human Sciences, plain black or blue covers with gold or silver print on them predominate, as well as the use of the font Times New Roman or at most Arial in the body of the text. Furthermore, there is little or no insertion of images in the main body of the text (images sometimes appear in attachments or on the covers, although it is quite unusual). The edition, therefore, comes closer to the thesis and dissertation editing standard, apart from some particular elements. This is what we can see in Professor Marcos Ferreira dos Santos’s memorial from the Education College, which presents an unjustified text and the use of capital letters at the beginning of each section: two small deviations from what is most common in academic texts.

Figure 2
– Academic Memorial from the Education College

With regard to editing issues, it is noted that there is a slight deviation from the academic thesis and dissertation standard in the academic memorials of the Human Sciences, without a new standard being established (the standard of books produced for circulation in the publishing market, for example). The effect that is created expresses a slightly deviant, creative ethos that seeks to differentiate from a model, albeit in a subtle way. The copies from the Human Sciences do not seem to be printed by a publisher, they look like a handcrafted edition.

This production of a slightly deviant style, perceived in the text editing process, meets some themes and figures, as we will see. Especially in the academic memorials from the Education College, the narrator or the actor of the narrated story is, in some passages, presented as someone who does not completely suit the ways of being and doing expected in the academic environment. The reiteration of such a discoursive strategy, found in many academic memorials, suggests that this posture, somehow confronting what these texts build as the academic mainstream, is something expected and positively sanctioned in speeches that circulate in some sub-areas. It is as if it were appropriate to be slightly inadequate in certain speeches, which corroborates the observations already made regarding the edition. The excerpts below illustrate our statements: Carvalho admits his unfamiliarity with the academic ethos; Arantes says he has at times abandoned certain theoretical assumptions; Aquino assumes his taste for transgression and his feeling of discomfort with life in general.

Unlike many colleagues, especially the younger ones, I did not associate my academic career with research and publications, but with teaching. This was not a conscious option to reject productivism, the presence of which was already imminent among us. The attitude was due more to the lack of familiarity with the academic ethos than with any strong contesting conviction (CARVALHO, 2013, our translation).⁵⁵

I must confess that, in many moments, I “abandoned” the theoretical assumptions that I should (and tried) to apply to my little “client” and was fascinated by the unusual, trying to read and hear what it told me with few words and many feelings. Spontaneity? Perhaps. Surrounded by four walls I allowed myself to “change the glasses” and I was able to see fantastic things! (ARANTES, 2012, p. 4, our translation).⁵⁶

It comes from that time, I suppose, one of the marks that accompanied me for the rest of my school life: the taste for transgression (AQUINO, 2009, p. 5, our translation).⁵⁷

Soon, however, things would start to fall apart. The golden dream of living in the capital faded. The neighborhood where I rented an apartment was scary. The buses were very full. USP classmates, very competitive. My research project, very inconsistent. Life, very expensive. The English classes I taught, poorly paid. I was finally baptized by the metropolis. I definitely belonged to it (AQUINO, 2009, p. 10, our translation).⁵⁸

Thus, we can say that there are some recurrent strategies that produce the effect of the enunciator´s singularity in the academic memorials from the Language and Literature Course and the Education College. The most striking ones are the following: the construction of a singular life (a feature reinforced by the strong presence of figures and themes related to childhood); the construction of a writing with a literary tone; the construction of a text with a certain passionate dimension; the description of ways of acting specific to each area and subarea; the construction of varied tones; and even the description of slight inadequacy against institutional forces.

Final considerations

The examination of some academic memorials from two major areas at USP, the Biological and the Human Areas, confirmed the relative variability of the genre. Regarding the discoursive semantics, we realize that all academic memorials present repeatedly themes and figures linked to professional, school and intellectual memories, which build the image of an enunciator who is a researcher and a professor, a subject in the academic environment. In spite of this, especially the academic memorials of the Human Sciences – but not only them – deal with family and private life, even though there are academic memorials from the Language and Literature Course and the Education College that do not mention them or address them between the lines.

Another point which we would like to draw attention to is the fact that, in all the examined texts, there is an urge to describe the enunciator as someone efficient and reliable and this image is created by dominantly using the formally registered and educated standard of the language, by using metalanguage specific to each area and subarea, by referring to the documentation attached to the text and also by abundantly using resources such as anchoring, when mentioning the names of people and places and even dates coming from a social discourse shared and considered to be true. However, in all the academic memorials there are features of more informal and colloquial language used in popular spheres or family context.

In the Biological texts as a whole, emotion is exacerbated in many passages and, particularly in the academic memorials from the Biosciences Institute, different types of humor is incorporated. It seems to be a way to project the image of an enunciator who does not always want to be neutral and detached, but rather an enunciator who is able to be sensitively involved with the world and with the experiences that his profession provides him with. In the texts of the Human Sciences, on the other hand, a more intense approach to literary language is observed. There are extremely poetic passages, in which the subject of the enunciation is called upon to relive the past with the narrator and the actor of the narrated story, something hardly seen in the examined copies from Bioscience Institute.

The passages in which the passionate and affective dimension is less called upon, which represent the vast majority even in the academic memorials of the Human Sciences, also present different attitudes regarding the use of language. In addition to the resources already mentioned, such as anchoring, used in academic memorials in the Biological Area, more in those from the Medicine School than in those from the Biosciences Institute, we notice that there is the most recurrent use of quantified data as well as the insertion of documents that prove the enunciator’s skills (letters of acknowledgement from students, letters from colleagues praising the candidate, etc.). On the other hand, the academic memorials from the Language and Literature Course and the Education College resort to other linguistic and discoursive procedures. The former quite often develop the narration at a metalinguistic level, where the act of narrating, the memorial genre and the meaning of life are examined as a narrative; the latter generally analyze this life seeking to insert it in a broader context, especially that of the history of education, based on a theoretical bibliography alluded to or cited in the body of the text. Within these general lines of the great areas and subareas, each memorial seems to seek a particular way of telling a life story and its own tone.

It is also pertinent to comment on the variability of the genre with respect to its edition. The difference in the way the edition of the academic memorials is conceived in the Biological and Human Sciences is striking. It was shown that, especially in the Medicine School, the academic memorials end up looking like a book, while those from the Language and Literature Course or the Education College are generally close to the standard edition of theses and dissertations, although they usually present a small deviation from this standard. The option for the memorial-book at the Medicine school contributes to creating the effect of academic innovation, efficiency and modernity concerning the mastery of a technology, as well as the insertion into the world of work beyond the academic sphere.

Such elements seem to be aligned with the discoursive semantics of the verbal component in academic memorials. The thematic isotopy of innovation and also the researcher-professor’s urge to show his qualities more explicitly contribute to the construction of an ethos marked by innovation, singularity, efficiency and competitiveness in the Medicine School. On the other hand, in the academic memorials from the Language and Literature Course and the Education College, some strategies such as the insertion of a singular story in a broader context, recurrent appeal to modesty, isotopies reiterating the figure of the critic, the use of more literary language in some passages seem to point to the production of a critical, creative and slightly nonconformist ethos.

The academic memorials from the Biosciences Institute seem to be particularly peculiar, because there are texts that are closer to those of the Human Science concerning the construction of the ethos, whereas others approximate those from the Medicine School. There are even many that seem to combine qualities, projecting, for example, a critical and innovative ethos, or rather a competitive and evasive one. However, there are two characteristics that seem to prevail in the academic memorials from the Bioscience Institute: the humorous tone and also the exacerbated presence of the collective act of doing. Humor makes the bioscientist’s ethos seem to be less strict, more relaxed, while the recurrence of figures that refer to teamwork and the use of we in discoursive syntax project a cooperative ethos, a feature that is also present in many texts from the Medicine School, but in a mitigated way.

Therefore, it is noted that there are common aspects, ways of telling the memory or even ways of doing the work of the memory proper to the academic community. In all the examined memorials, there are some prevailing features such as the effect of the enunciator’s singularization and his concern to show himself as a competent, serious, objective researcher, but also sensitive. The ways of producing the singularization effect, however, are varied and reveal inclinations proper to each area, to each institute, faculty, course, and even to each examined text. When producing his memories, the researcher-professor produces himself, as a way of saying and being, always between confrontation and conformity with other ways of inhabiting the space of tensions that constitutes the academic sphere.

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• DISCINI, N. Corpo e estilo São Paulo: Contexto, 2015.
• DISCINI, N. O estilo nos textos São Paulo: Contexto, 2003.
• DISCINI, N. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso para provimento de um cargo de Professor Doutor no Departamento de Linguística) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2002.
• FESTA NETO, C. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso junto ao Departamento de Dermatologia) - Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2009. Sem paginação.
• FIORIN, J. L. Argumentação São Paulo: Contexto, 2015.
• FIORIN, J. L. Semiótica e comunicação. Revista Galáxia, São Paulo, n. 18, p.13-30, 2004.
• FIORIN, J. L. Linguagem e ideologia São Paulo: Ática, 1998.
• FIORIN, J. L. As astúcias da enunciação São Paulo: Ática, 1996.
• FIORIN, J. L. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso de Livre-Docência junto ao Departamento de Linguística) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 1994.
• GREIMAS, A. J.; COURTÉS, J. Dicionário de Semiótica Tradução de Alceu Dias Lima et al. São Paulo: Contexto, 2008.
• HALBWACHS, M. A Memória coletiva. Tradução de Laurent Léon Schaffter. São Paulo: Vértice; Revista dos Tribunais, 1990.
• LATRONICO, A. C. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso junto ao Departamento de Clínica Médica) - Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2010.
• LEJEUNE, P. Le pacte autobiographique Paris: Seuil, 1996.
• MAINGUENEAU, D. O contexto da obra literária São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1995.
• MARANDINO, M. A construção de uma identidade profissional Tese (Concurso de Livre-Docência) - Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2012.
• MARQUES, F. P. de L. M. [Memorial]. Tese (Livre-Docência junto ao Departamento de Zoologia) - Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2007.
• NEGRÃO, E. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso para provimento de um cargo de Professor Titular no Departamento de Linguística) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2004.
• NORONHA, I. de L. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso junto ao Departamento de Clínica Médica) - Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2010.
• PETTER, M. M. T. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso de Livre-Docência junto ao Departamento de Linguística) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2008.
• POMPÊO, M. L. M. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso junto ao Departamento de Ecologia) - Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2007.
• QUADROS, M. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso de Livre-Docência junto ao Departamento de Letras Clássicas e Vernáculas) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2006.
• SANTOS, M. F. dos. Forjas da temperança: caminhos de um Memorial. Tese (Concurso de Livre-Docência) - Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2003.
• VIDAL, D. [Memorial]. Tese (Concurso de Livre-Docência) - Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2004.
• ZILBERBERG, C. Eléments de grammaire tensive Limoges: Pulim, 2006.

• 1
  Original: “O caráter livre, espontâneo, quase onírico da memória é, segundo Halbwachs, excepcional. Na maior parte das vezes, lembrar não é reviver, mas refazer, reconstruir, repensar, com imagens e ideias de hoje, as experiências do passado. A memória não é sonho, é trabalho. Se assim é, deve-se duvidar da sobrevivência do passado, “tal como foi”, e que se daria no inconsciente de cada sujeito. A lembrança é uma imagem construída pelos materiais que estão, agora, à nossa disposição, no conjunto de representações que povoam nossa consciência atual. Por mais nítida que nos pareça a lembrança de um fato antigo, ela não é a mesma imagem que experimentamos na infância, porque nós não somos os mesmos de então e porque nossa percepção alterou-se e, com ela, nossas ideias, nossos juízos de realidade e de valor. O simples fato de lembrar o passado, no presente, exclui a identidade entre as imagens de um e de outro, e propõe a sua diferença em termos de ponto de vista”. (BOSI, 1994, p. 55).
• 2
  Among those interested in the genre, we highlight the Interdisciplinary Research, Training, (Auto) Biography and Representations Group of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, linked to the Graduate Program in Education of the same University, whose members have been responsible for a considerable number of articles and books dedicated to the academic memorial, among other genres.
• 3
  Original: “Quando falamos em ‘eu’ e ‘tu’, falamos em actantes da enunciação, ou seja, em posições dentro da cena enunciativa, aquele que fala e aquele com quem se fala. No entanto, nos diferentes textos, essas posições são concretizadas e esses actantes tornam-se atores da enunciação. O ator é uma concretização temático-figurativa do actante”. (FIORIN, 2004, p. 18).
• 4
  Original: “Modo de presença de um sujeito dado no ato de enunciar pressuposto a uma totalidade de enunciados, remete a um sujeito discursivo, que deixa rastros de sua identidade naquilo que diz, por meio de um modo próprio de dizer, o que supõe peculiaridades éticas e afetivas na relação com o mundo”. (DISCINI, 2015, p. 87).
• 5
  Original: “Onde se encontram, na materialidade discursiva da totalidade, as marcas do éthos do enunciador? Dentro dessa totalidade, procuram-se recorrências em qualquer elemento composicional do discurso ou do texto: na escolha do assunto, na construção das personagens, nos gêneros escolhidos, no nível de linguagem usado, no ritmo, na figurativização, na escolha dos temas, nas isotopias etc. Num jornal, a imagem do enunciador se mostra até mesmo no tamanho das letras utilizadas, no número de colunas ocupadas pela manchete e assim por diante” (FIORIN, 2004, p. 21).
• 6
  Original: “Nasci numa fazenda de café e desde cedo convivi com o cheiro dos grãos de café secando no terreiro – trago este aroma em minha mente até hoje [...]”. (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 1).
• 7
  It should be highlighted here that in semiotics the discoursive syntax consists in this projection of people, times and spaces in the utterance.
• 8
  According to Lejeune (1996), the identity relationship between author and narrator, narrator and central character, central character and author is one of the elements upon which the autobiographical pact is founded. In this work, the semiotics metalanguage is the tool for analysis; therefore, terms such as the central actor of the narrated story, the narrator and the enunciator are used. In short, the enunciator can be said to be the implicit element, the presupposed “author” in the utterance; the narrator is the one to whom the enunciator delegates his voice; therefore, he plays the role of telling the story; the central actor of the utterance is the one who, installed in the narrated story, lives the story told by the narrator. The question of identities was further exploited in Barros (2012).
• 9
  Original: “Como escrevi anteriormente, aprendemos juntos, pois o mundo das plantas é um aprendizado contínuo – não há barreiras, não há fim”. (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 5).
• 10
  Original: “Desta forma, tenho a pretensão de continuar a desenvolver atividades de ensino, pesquisa e extensão no Depto. de Ecologia (IB, USP), de ampliar as abordagens e parcerias e fomentar a formação de recursos humanos. Viso elevar o nível educacional e de conscientização da população brasileira, mas sem me esquecer das publicações em revistas especializadas de alto nível de impacto”. (POMPÊO, 2007, p. 10).
• 11
  Original: “Eu, em conjunto com o químico Nelson da Silva César Junior, fomos os primeiros a explorar as cavernas areníticas no município de Altinópolis, trabalho apresentado no I Simpósio Paulista de Espeleologia, ocorrido na UFSCar, em setembro de 1981, evento organizado pelo GAE”. (POMPÊO, 2007, p. 4-5).
• 12
  Original: “Meu fascínio pelo Transplante aconteceu desde o primeiro contato. Racionalmente, este profundo interesse pelo Transplante pode ser justificado por ser uma subespecialidade que consegue integrar Nefrologia, Clínica Médica e Imunologia, além do desafio apaixonante e envolvente de transformar a cruel evolução natural de uma doença crônica, que ainda não tem opção de cura, numa evolução mais favorável através do transplante de um órgão norma” (NORONHA, 2010, p. III).
• 13
  Original: “E foi assim que conheci a Professora Nanuza Luíza de Menezes!!! O Professor Paulo Pasquarelli levou-me até a sala da professora Nanuza, que nos recebeu com sua alegria e otimismo contagiantes. Lembro-me como se fosse hoje! E assim começou a minha relação com a pessoa maravilhosa, a grande pesquisadora, a pesquisadora que tem “a generosidade do saber” e a grande responsável pela minha vida acadêmica” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 1).
• 14
  Original: “Remeto-os aos primórdios de minha infância na crença de que nasci cientista, ou pelo menos muito curioso” (MARQUES, 2007, p. 2).
• 15
  Original: “Sinto-me totalmente vocacionada para exercer a função de docente [...]. Desempenho esse papel com entusiasmo, responsabilidade e grande prazer”. (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 23).
• 16
  Original: “[...] trabalho este pioneiro no Brasil na época” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 2).
• 17
  Original: “Até o momento descrevemos nove espécies novas de monocotilídeos [...]” (MARQUES, 2007, p. 13).
• 18
  Original: “[...] Em 2002 publiquei o primeiro trabalho no Brasil do tratamento do câncer cutâneo com imunomodulador” (FESTA NETO, 2009, p. 87).
• 19
  Original: “[...] achados originais obtidos” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 60).
• 20
  Original: “[...] aplicação inédita” (NORONHA, 2010, p. VI).
• 21
  Original: “Mesmo com a educação rígida que recebi pude aproveitar grande parte de minha infância e adolescência brincando na rua, que na época era possível, principalmente andando de bicicleta ou empinando pipas, que eu mesma confeccionava. Por influência de minha irmã, meu ídolo, cresci ouvindo bossa nova e música clássica” (NORONHA, 2010, p. I).
• 22
  Original: “Nasci na capital de São Paulo e acredito não ter tido uma infância diferente dos netos de imigrantes que aqui nasceram. Pipas, bolinhas de gude, futebol, pés na água após as chuvas” (FESTA NETO, 2009).
• 23
  Original: “Foi excelente [volta à clínica médica], pois nunca mais voltei a ter dúvidas de que clinicar não era o que eu queria fazer” (CHAUI-BERLINK, 2006, p. 8).
• 24
  Original: “Na época, Ubatuba era muito diferente do que é hoje, mas chovia o mesmo tanto” (MARQUES, 2007, p. 2).
• 25
  Original: “Na discussão sobre a Pesquisa Clínica, cabe uma reflexão crítica importante sobre sua forma de atuação, visto a forte interferência que a Indústria Farmacêutica exerce sobre as atividades que deveriam ter um perfil predominantemente acadêmico” (NORONHA, 2010, p. XXVII).
• 26
  Original: “E chega de ‘sacanear’ aluno!” (CHAUI-BERLINK, 2006, p. 53).
• 27
  Original: “Ao longo dos últimos 15 anos, contribuí com a implantação de um laboratório de pesquisa competitivo [...]” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 1).
• 28
  Original: “O programa de internato bem estruturado e o convívio com colegas muito interessados e competitivos [...] estimularam o meu preparo para as provas de residência médica” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 2).
• 29
  Original: “Em fevereiro de 1989, fui selecionada após processo competitivo a ocupar uma das quatro vagas de residência na Disciplina de Endocrinologia e Metabologia, sob a chefia do professor doutor Bernardo Léo Wajchenberg” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 2).
• 30
  Original: “Nessa ocasião, fui aceita para o estágio no laboratório do professor doutor. George P. Chrousos, um dos maiores investigadores da endocrinologia pediátrica com aproximadamente 800 publicações e várias premiações internacionais” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 2).
• 31
  Original: “marcam de forma definitiva o meu nome no cenário de pesquisa internacional” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 8).
• 32
  Original: “With this I achieved respect in this area, being considered a very good professor by students and a good lecturer” (NORONHA, 2010, p. XVII).
• 33
  Original: “Como Professora Titular, desejo manter minha contribuição no crescimento da Disciplina de Endocrinologia e Metabologia da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo. No âmbito da pesquisa, planejo fomentar o desenvolvimento de metodologias científicas inovadoras nas áreas de genética clínica e molecular voltadas para a investigação dos distúrbios endócrinos. Participarei ativamente na construção de novas parcerias científicas nacionais e internacionais com o propósito de incrementar a produção científica local e aprimorar a capacitação de profissionais médicos e não-médicos, fortalecendo ainda mais a imagem sólida de liderança de nossa Instituição. Comprometo-me em desempenhar com entusiasmo e interesse minhas atividades de docência e extensão, e colaborar na obtenção de um atendimento médico de qualidade e de um ensino médico de excelência. Finalmente, prometo exercer esse cargo com responsabilidade e compromisso social seguindo as mesmas promessas proferidas no início da minha carreira como médica” (LATRONICO, 2010, p. 1).
• 34
  Original: “Este foi um período enriquecedor, pois analisávamos e discutíamos as semelhanças e diferenças estruturais das madeiras” (ANGYALOSSY, 2006, p. 2).
• 35
  Original: “Em 1990, em associação com o Professor José Antonio Sanches Jr. Idealizamos e criamos o Ambulatório de Oncologia Cutânea” (FESTA NETO, 2009).
• 36
  Original: “A tese de livre-docência ‘O português brasileiro: uma língua voltada para o discurso’ pode-se dizer que representa a conclusão de uma sequência de pesquisas sobre a hipótese de que as características dos sistemas de flexão de uma língua são responsáveis por sua estrutura sentencial e pela distribuição e interpretação das formas integrantes de seu sistema anafórico” (NEGRÃO, 2004, p. 50).
• 37
  Original: “Em meados de 1993, o SENAC me convidou para fazer uma palestra em Salvador, no lançamento do livro África: moda, cultura e tradição, que reunia textos de Fábio Ávila e Fábio Leite (e algumas citações de minha tese) (219), sobre fotos do vestuário africano feitas por Maureen Bisilliat em Abijan” (PETTER, 2008, p. 24).
• 38
  We understand “iconization” as the last stage of figurativization, in which figures are endowed with particularizing investments (GREIMAS; COURTÉS, 2008, p. 251).
• 39
  Original: “Muitos acham que nasceram predestinados a grandes feitos. Eu nasci, sem qualquer predestinação para as alturas, em Birigui, uma cidadezinha qualquer. Na infância, fui um menino comum. Tive uma meninice típica de interiorano: brincava, passeava, frequentava o grupo escolar. A família era enorme: primos, tios... Sobre todos pairava a figura do nono. Fiz ginásio e clássico. Fui muito bom aluno. Talvez porque em casa me tenham incutido um profundo senso do dever” (FIORIN, 1994, p. 8).
• 40
  Original: “De qualquer forma, vejo aí um fio, uma linha que parece tecer esta trajetória, que costura e aproxima fatos e lhes dá algum sentido. Participar de centros de ciência, estudar ciências, estudar o ensino de ciências, pesquisar os museus de ciências. Foi aí que me encontrei!” (MARANDINO, 2012, p. 4).
• 41
  Original: “Mas rapidamente desenvolvi uma paixão – insensata, como todas as verdadeiras paixões – pelo ensino” (CARVALHO, 2013).
• 42
  It was not possible to obtain the pages of the document because it exists only in physical format at the University of São Paulo’s library, and due to the coronavirus pandemic it is not possible to access it at the moment.
• 43
  Original: “Poderia iniciar minha narrativa dizendo que a opção pela educação não foi uma tomada de posição madura e adulta. Pelo relato de meus pais, e pela lembrança que tenho de alguns fatos da infância, sei que desse período foi a preferência por não deixar sem as letras as pessoas mais simples que passaram por mim. [...]” (QUADROS, 2006, p.10).
• 44
  Original: “Importa o tato do estojo de madeira ou de lata, em que se guardavam lápis, caneta e sonhos; o cheiro da borracha de apagar; o avental branco com inscrição em linha azul, Q.A., Quinzinho do Amaral, uniforme a ser conservado limpo” (DISCINI, 2002, p. 8).
• 45
  Original: “Nasci de frente para o Atlântico (este mar/morte terrificante e fascinante, ao mesmo tempo), num hospital do porto de Santos (“De Todos os Santos”). O cais é sempre este ponto seguro da terra que nos arremessa à incerteza do mar, à sua concretude líquida. Numa quarta-feira (no meio da semana), à meia-noite (no meio do dia e da noite). No transitar de um dia para o outro, sob o domínio lunar da escuridão luminosamente estrelada por gotas de chuva-constelações, num final de 23 de outubro de 1963. Noite chuvosa em que meu pai escorregava numa poça de água a caminho do hospital, destas mesmas que planteiam a calçada e o asfalto com múltiplos lagos que escondem sua profundidade na superfície” (SANTOS, 2003, p. 7).
• 46
  Original: “Cursei grande parte de minha escolaridade básica no Colégio Fish e na década de 70 e início de 80, no Colégio Anderson, na Tijuca, no Rio de Janeiro. Lá as aulas de ciências eram muito especiais. Tínhamos laboratórios grandes e bem equipados, e as aulas práticas eram comuns, especialmente no “ginásio”. Influenciado, muito provavelmente, pelo movimento experimental e empirista do ensino de ciências e pelo fato de já ter sido uma escola profissionalizante [...]. Não é fácil localizar o início das feiras de ciências no Brasil [...]. Como nos conta Myriam Krasilchik, em seu célebre livro “O professor e o ensino de ciências”, de 1987 [...]. Esta ênfase experimental se mantém até hoje, para além das diferentes influências teóricas dos momentos históricos posteriores. Remodelou-se a partir das novas realidades históricas e políticas dos anos subsequentes da década de 1990 e continua sendo ressignificado nas discussões sobre a melhoria do ensino de ciências deste século XXI” (MARANDINO, 2012, p. 3).
• 47
  Original: “Deu-me um caderno, escreveu na primeira linha ‘a-e-i-o-u’ e mandou que eu copiasse aquelas letras na página inteira. Depois deu um visto e passou uma nova lição, desta vez numa pequena lousa. No ano seguinte, ao entrar na primeira série, já estava praticamente alfabetizado (a despeito do tradicionalismo caricatural de suas aulas e de seu total desconhecimento da psicogênese da língua escrita!). O que dela diriam os zelosos vigilantes das renovações didático-metodológicas? Como se forma um alfabetizador?” (CARVALHO, 2013).
• 48
  Original: “Como toda criança do início da década de 1970, fui alfabetizado pelo indefectível método Caminho Suave. Naquele tempo a abelha não havia ainda se transmutado em amor; laranja em liberdade; a unha no universo. Habitava-se um mundo de superfícies planas, imediatas: elefante, faca, macaco, navio, ovo, pato, queijo e rato” (AQUINO, 2009, p. 4).
• 49
  Original: “Ao empenhar-me nesta tarefa de construção de meu memorial, fui-me dando conta do estranho jogo entre as certezas que geraram certas escolhas e a casualidade que me levou a caminhos inimagináveis em minha carreira acadêmica” (NEGRÃO, 2004, p. 5).
• 50
  Original: “Memorial é um texto em que são consignados fatos de que se quer lembrar. Esse termo é derivado de memória, a faculdade de conservar e de lembrar estados de consciência passados” (FIORIN, 1994, p. 4).
• 51
  Original: “Como contar, ainda que sumariamente, tudo o que pude ver, ouvir e pensar, em matéria de arte, ao longo do tempo em que estive fora? Confesso-me perplexo, sem saber por onde começar. No entanto, como é preciso, vou sugerir alguma coisa” (ARRIGUCCI Jr., 1990, p. 20).
• 52
  Original: “Assumo, aqui, a preocupação tomada por Hobsbawm em Tempos interessantes. Circunscrevo o relato à trajetória profissional. A vida pessoal ficará ao largo, denunciando o desconforto com o gênero autobiográfico. Recorto a escrita ainda um pouco mais. Restrinjo-me a tratar dos últimos 16 anos, momento em que iniciei no magistério de nível superior. A escolha se dá por pretender discorrer apenas sobre o trânsito intelectual na arena da história da educação. Os limites auto-impostos inibem a apresentação dos fatos vividos antes de 1987 (às vezes, entretanto, se insinuam sob forma de notas de rodapé), e respaldam uma abordagem que pende para a reflexão histórica e conceitual sobre temas de pesquisa. A investigação acadêmica e os grupos a ela associados constituem-se, assim, no centro da narrativa, o que não impede que as relações tramadas com a docência e a extensão sejam articuladas no texto” (VIDAL, 2004, p. 4).
• 53
  Original: “As imagens pululam hoje em minha memória assim como os insetos que se movimentam no final de tarde na despedida do sol e recepção do manto sereno da noite: crepusculário” (SANTOS, 2003, p. 7).
• 54
  “On the mainstay of philosophical and anthropological reflections and attitudes, I travelled to faraway places, as they clarify the sense of my hometown, of my first reward. My village is the world and the world is my village. Atahualpa Yupanqui (the Argentinian folklorist who is currently in the “good horses’ heaven” with all his fire-maned sorrel horses, next to the crazy and adorable meteoric star Astor Piazzolla) said that “we can only be universal if we sing our own village”. From those faraway places with colorful and grayish shades, I was able to see the confluence of diverse paths which took me to an equidistant point between the Alps and the Andes in the middle of the Atlantic…maybe in watery Atlantis. At the Alpha of everything, at the “A” Indian lotus yogi position. The Alps that served as a slope to my very dear French thinkers: Mounier, Merleau-Ponty, Freinet, Gilbert Duran, Bachelard, the Russian exiled Berdyaev and a”.
• 55
  Original: “Ao contrário de muitos colegas, sobretudo os mais jovens, não vinculava a carreira acadêmica a pesquisas e publicações, mas ao ensino. Não se tratava de uma opção consciente de rejeição do produtivismo, cuja presença já se insinuava entre nós. A atitude se devia mais à falta de familiaridade com o ethos acadêmico do que a qualquer forte convicção contestatória” (CARVALHO, 2013).
• 56
  Original: “Devo confessar que, em muitos momentos, “abandonei” os pressupostos teóricos que deveria (e tentava) aplicar com meu pequeno “cliente” e deixei-me fascinar pelo insólito, tentando ler e ouvir o que ele, com poucas palavras e muitos sentimentos, me dizia. Espontaneísmo? Talvez. Cercada de quatro paredes me permiti “trocar de óculos” e pude ver coisas fantásticas!” (ARANTES, 2012, p. 4).
• 57
  Original: “Vem desse tempo, suponho, uma das marcas que me acompanhou pelo restante de minha trajetória escolar: o gosto pela transgressão” (AQUINO, 2009, p. 5).
• 58
  Original: “Em brevíssimo, porém, as coisas começariam a desencaixar. O sonho dourado de viver na capital esfumaçava-se. A vizinhança do apartamento alugado era tenebrosa. Os ônibus, muito cheios. Os colegas de USP, muito competitivos. Meu projeto de pesquisa, muito inconsistente. A vida, muito cara. As aulas de inglês que havia arrumado, mal pagas. Eu estava enfim batizado pela metrópole. Já era, definitivamente, um dos seus” (AQUINO, 2009, p. 10).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  04 Oct 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  22 Jan 2020
• Accepted
  5 Aug 2020