GONÇALVES, J. C. et al. (org.). Além da tese: percursos de pesquisa em ciências humanas [Beyond Thesis: Routes for Research in Human Sciences]. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2022. 212 p.

GONÇALVES, J. C.. Além da tese. : percursos de pesquisa em ciências humanas. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2022. 212 p

Midway to the Thesis, There Are (Us) People and the Pandemic

The purpose of scientific research and the public money invested in it has never been more discussed than in the last two years, in which human life was threatened (and harvested) by an invisible virus of high propagation, overwhelming in its effects. The plague was airborne and various protective measures did not dispense with isolation and withdrawal from the social life that constitute human beings. In just a few months, since the first recorded case of contamination (December 2019), the world has come together around the same issue, the same struggle for survival, which has indisputably been characterized as the great global crisis of the 21st century.

“The first fulminating revelation of this unprecedented crisis is that everything that seemed separate is inseparable” (Morin, 2021, p.21).¹ With this statement, the century-old French thinker Edgar Morin, in É hora de mudarmos de via: as lições do coronavírus [It’s Time to Change our Ways: The Lessons of the Coronavirus], from 2021, argues that the crisis to be overcome is that of the paradigm of Western modernity and calls for the urgent need to change ways. The author’s reflections could be summarized in the search for quality of life, which depends on “well-being in the existential sense, and not just in the material one. It implies quality relationships with others and the poetry of affective and affectionate involvement” (Morin, 2021, p.75).² The author calls this the “civilizational policy” of less of self and more of us, a politics of humanity. In this book, there are no specific lessons for education, but an assertive commandment that the reform of thought underlying the lessons offered by the pandemic “must be accompanied by a policy of re-education of education” (p.68).³

In this program of a plurality of proposals for reform and regeneration of the humane, there is the area of Human Sciences to which Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação [Post-Graduation Program in Education] (PPGE/UFPR) adheres to, where a doctoral course intitled Seminário de Tese em Linguagem, Corpo e Estética na Educação [Seminar on Thesis in Language, Body and Aesthetics in Education] has developed. The faculty offers students and/or supervisees the freedom of writing about the self. The object of the proposal, which culminates with this book Além da tese: percursos de pesquisa em Ciências Humanas [Beyond Thesis: Routes for Research in Humans Sciences] resides in the discourses that involve those social, historical, cultural and ethically constituted subjects by means of actively listening to social bodies in the thesis, to lives that are living at the same time as doctorate research develops and the pandemic imposes itself. The book reviewed here focuses on the construction of a new route, a new way of doing human social research. And that has to do with looking both at the self and at the other. It also has to do with being affected and affecting the other and in this route produced by hands, minds, and human hearts, it has to do with self-understanding.

Além da tese: percursos de pesquisa em Ciências Humanas is the fifth volume of the series LiCorEs - Linguagem, Corpo, Estética [Language, Body, Aesthetics], edited by Beth Brait and Jean Carlos Gonçalves in 2022 by Hucitec. The 212-page volume has 16 chapters, and is organized by Jean Carlos Gonçalves, Michelle Bocchi Gonçalves, Otilia Lizete de O. M. Heinig, Maria Helena Cruz Pistori e Valéria Silva Ferreira.

The essay style was the discursive genre chosen by the authors of the different texts, all of them showing a well-organized form and a logical exposition, albeit with different styles. There is a text composed of letters, another, divided into acts, several interspersed with poetry, roughly intimate reports, all written in the first person, oscillating between the prosaic and the poetic. An essay always denote indeterminacy and unfinazability, which is in line with the proposal of these texts that offer an overview of the material and subjective conditions of the doctoral research in progress at the time of writing, with total freedom of expression.

The texts are in their majority autobiographical, and themes are close to philosophy, philosophy of language, performance studies, body arts and aesthetics, with the clear intention to communicate, to expose the doctoral being under construction. Due to the different areas and the essayistic characteristic regarding the compositional form, those some authors present their bibliographic references expressed at the end of the text (eight) alternate among the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire, Richard Schechner, Umberto Eco, Valentin Vološinov, others base on manuals of scientific methodology and also self-authored works of members of Grupo de Pesquisa do Laboratório de Estudos em Educação, Linguagem e Teatralidades [Research Group of the Laboratory of Studies in Education, Language and Theater] (Labelit/UFPR/CNPq). There is an essay anchored in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

The pandemic that happened (still happens)⁴ inside and outside homes has pressured universities, Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) included, to find other means of functioning than face-to-face. Thus, teaching, research, and extension activities started being mediated entirely by technological resources for communication and teaching in a distance education format, in which the previously mentioned doctorate discipline developed.

In the introductory text, written in the fall of 2021, “Além da tese: dores e delícias da pesquisa em Ciências Humanas” [“Beyond Thesis: Pains and Gains of Research in Human Sciences”], the professors/supervisors and organizers of the work, Jean Carlos Gonçalves and Michelle Bocchi Gonçalves. They place the germ of the proposal in the discipline offered in 2020, which aimed to prepare students for the thesis qualification exam. As a way of presenting the other fifteen following articles, this first text mentions the authors divided among the nine students of the Seminar, the four guests and the three participating professors from other universities, also organizers of the work, most of them integrating the research line Linguagem, Corpo e Estética na Educação [Language, Body and Aesthetics in Education] (PPGE/UFPR).

Texts gathered here are full of life. We often forget, in the university environment, that the researchers have a life, that their demands are not very recognized and sometimes little valued by the academic sphere, which incessantly requests scientific products resulting from their investigations. But is it possible to be researchers in the Human Sciences and, at the same time, forget the very humanity that constitutes us? (p.10)⁵

The authors announce the theme of the work, which is based on the tensions and uncertainties of the study in Human Sciences, questioning the overwhelming rhythm of various productions, of internal and external norms to the post-graduation programs, of the evaluation and sponsoring institutions, of pressures in a way justifiable in view of the search for recognition and excellence. The author also reminds us that in between this all, there are people. And people do suffer. And people do get sick:

The incessant search, in this work, is of the order of anguish - it cannot be otherwise. To be a researcher, especially in and about Human Sciences, in this troubled and sad time is to surrender to not knowing, as never before. We don't know, and we don't know if we ever will. Therefore, what remains for us is to research (p.12).⁶

Thus, in this presentation, Gonçalves and Gonçalves invite readers (academicians) to reflect on the epistemology of doing Human Sciences in academia by posing specific questions - what are the object and objectives of research in Human Sciences and what are they really intended for? More than that, they argue that the work reflects a specific daily routine on screen through which the group of researchers remained connected, building a new socialization among people. Thus, they justify the “beyond the thesis” for everything that surrounds the life of the researcher in/about the Human Sciences, and why not, in and about other sciences, including the search for an updated relevance by the disease that sweeps the world and demands quick results from science.

In the second text of the work, “Viagem e pesquisa: mais que uma simples metáfora” [“Travel and Research: More Than a Simple Metaphor”], the guest professor of the Seminário de Tese discipline, also the organizer of the work, Otilia Lizete de Oliveira Martins Heinig (Fundação Universidade Regional de Blumenau/ [Foundation Regional University of Blumenau] FURB), builds a text in didactic prose comparing to a journey the path that one takes in qualitative research in search of answers that motivate the investigation. Proposing a dialogue between works of scientific methodology and research in education and language, the author converses with the reader offering an organization scheme that unveils a careful supervisor and a frequent traveler. By listing elements common to trips (the type of traveler/researcher that one is, planning/route/reservations/map/records, the choice of a partner/advisor and real and ideal expectations), the writer reinforces that the route must be flexible, but without giving up prior organization, as “it is necessary to pack your luggage with concepts that will guide the choices to be made along the way” (p.23).⁷

The third text, which precedes the texts of the doctoral students, is from the editor of the journal Bakhtiniana, another guest professor, who teaches the discipline, and also organizes the book, Maria Helena Cruz Pistori (Pontificate Catholic University of São Paulo/PUC/SP). “Publish or perish: a publicação científica na formação do pesquisador” [“Publish or Perish: Scientific Publication in the Formation of the Researcher”] reinforces the scientific rigor, the responsibility (and the obligation) involved in the publicization of the research carried out, which is “essential for the development of knowledge” (p.37).⁸ The author is anchored in the dialogic theory of discourse, understanding the researching in Human Sciences as the science of one that expresses oneself when creating texts (Bakhtin, 1984),⁹ situating the interlocutors, second subjects, involved in the production, reception and circulation of scientific articles, such as authors, editors and reviewers. The explanation is competent and reveals an intimacy with the universe of scientific publications, explaining the concept of Open Science, a set of open science procedures and policies at all stages of research that are available to society, especially research financed by public institutions.

The discussion in the text covers the journal evaluation system and guides the reader/author in choosing a quality journal publication system in the process of choosing a quality journal for publication of research works, according to excellence criteria expressed in Qualis (CAPES/MEC); it also includes excellence criteria for the journals to be publicized electronically in Scielo (FAPESP - Fundação para a pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [Foundation for Research in the State of São Paulo]). The author also discusses the characteristics of a scientific article, taking a critical position on the staunch movement of publishing or perishing that “does not necessarily mean the advancement of science” (p.47).¹⁰

The text is configured as an important source for the presentation of scientific popularization processes in relation to the dialogues between supervisor and supervisee, not only in post-graduate studies, but in the university’s research initiation processes, for its unveiling of the practices and subjects involved, who strive to overcome the solitary environment of research and succeed in the writing of a scientific text. There are not only others involved in the authors’ dialogue with their heroes, but an entire ideological apparatus organized around academic research because it is “impossible to determine their positions without correlating them with other positions” (Bakhtin, 1986, p.91).¹¹

The following thirteen texts belong to students, the nine seminar participants and the four guests. They are reports about the self and about the daily confrontations of the path to doctoral research in the pandemic; they involve writing and the relationship with the supervisors. In addition to that (or would it be above all?), they offer a sensitive portrait of a life “that moves theoretically and empirically, metaphorically and literally,”¹² as well demonstrated in the text “Odisseia de uma pesquisadora em (des)construção” [“Odyssey of a researcher in (de)construction”], by Déborah Helenise Lemes de Paula. There are lives and important (unprecedented?) reflections in the texts that make up this work, each one framed by a poetic title well announcing what comes next.

Would it be too bold to say that the questions raised by the authors of the introductory text could constitute the basis for building a new path in the academy? If that is not so, we must admit that the proposal is daring mainly because it takes the risk of making the doctoral path/s in the pandemic simple, palpable.

Even though it is a work produced within and about the academy, the reiteration of the keywords research, education, body, life, time and process (human processes) are highlighted during the reading. Loose words like these ones only produce meaning when one understands the proposal to create the book and its materialization in each text that composes it. However, the mere arrangement of them in sequence suggests the process involved in research in Education, which points to the life of social bodies that inhabit this present time.

It is impossible to keep distance provided by the third person singular, after getting in touch with these texts. Therefore, I want to emphasize that, while the virus circulate(d) freely, keeping bodies distanced, there were people studying to get their PhD’s. So, this book tells the stories: 1) of the daughter who accompanies her father queued for the vaccination against Covid)19; 2) of a former rural worker from “MANdirituba”, PR; 3) a lucky “lady” who lives near the university; 4) of the Amazonian spiritualist girl who inhales the air of memories from bathing in Rio Negro while her lungs fill up with another dark matter; 5) of the privileged young man who has a mother, father, sister and grandparents!; 6) of skater Bernardo’s mother; 7) of the girl who is passionate about learning and lends out her books; 8) of the 26-year-old little bird actress who reads dancing words in books; 9) of the art teacher who is neither this nor that, but all of that; 10) of the young man who looks in the mirror and remembers the fear he felt of the teacher who beat children; 11) of the woman/mother/wife/sister/daughter who was born in a small town in the 1970s; 12) of an engineer girl from the state of Acre who came to look into the eyes of others in Curitiba; 13) of the fifth daughter of gaucho Italian immigrant parents who grow cabbages. The text also tells the stories: 1) of the couple that exists/sees/setsfree/guides beyond the thesis; 2) of the experienced traveler who collects miniatures of the world and 3) of the reader who savors an Italian work and affectionately calls it a “precious little book.”

The work is intended for post-graduation students and, at the same time, provides reflection on the human being in different perspectives, from the same horizon, that of writing the thesis, and calls for academic movements of openness to the singularity and poetry that constitute each life story described here.

Bakhtin (1986, p.107)¹³ states that the “a human act is a potential text and can be understood (…) only in the dialogic context of its time (…).” Reading Além da tese... allows the reader to enter the dialogic chain that emerges from personal, professional and academic lives: its authors are professors, they are supervisors, they are supervisees/students whose supervisors and others are their tutors. Several of them belong in the same research group and shar the same line of research, theories with their inherent norms and scientific rigor, at the same time as they share anguishes and solidarity.

• 1
  In Portuguese: “A primeira revelação fulminante dessa crise inédita é que tudo o que parecia separado é inseparável.”
• 2
  In Portuguese: “bem-estar no sentido existencial, e não apenas no material. Implica a qualidade das relações com o próximo e a poesia dos envolvimentos afetivos e afetuosos.”
• 3
  In Portuguese: “deve ser acompanhada por uma política de reeducação da educação.”
• 4
  In July of 2022, World Health Organization maintains the pandemic situation as Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Available at: https://www.who.int/multi-media/details/who-press-conference-oncovid-19-and-other-global-health-issues---12-july-2022. Access on: July, 13, 2022.
• 5
  In Portuguese: “Os textos aqui reunidos são repletos de vida. Muitas vezes esquecemos, no ambiente universitário, que o pesquisador tem uma vida, que tem demandas não muito reconhecidas e às vezes pouco valorizadas pela esfera acadêmica, que solicita incessantemente produtos científicos resultantes das suas investigações. Mas será que é possível sermos pesquisadores em Ciências Humanas e, ao mesmo tempo, esquecermos da própria humanidade que nos constitui?”
• 6
  In Portuguese: “A busca incessante, nesta obra, é da ordem da angústia - não tem como ser diferente. Ser pesquisador, especialmente nas e das Ciências Humanas, nesse tempo perturbado e triste, é entregar-se ao não saber, como nunca antes. Não sabemos, e não sabemos se um dia saberemos. Portanto, o que nos resta é pesquisar.”
• 7
  In Portuguese: “é necessário trazer, nas malas, os conceitos que irão nortear as escolhas feitas ao longo do caminho.”
• 8
  In Portuguese: “essencial para o desenvolvimento do conhecimento.”
• 9
  BAKHTIN, M. The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology and the Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis. In: BAKHTIN, M. Speech Genres & Other Late Essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee and Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. pp.103-131.
• 10
  In Portuguese: “não significa necessariamente o avanço da ciência.”
• 11
  BAKHTIN, M. The Problem of Speech Genres. In: BAKHTIN, M. Speech Genres & Other Late Essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee and Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. pp.60-102.
• 12
  In Portuguese: “que se move teórica e empiricamente, metafórica e literalmente.”
• 13
  For reference, see footnote 9.
• Reviews
  Due to the commitment assumed by Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies] to Open Science, this journal only publishes reviews that have been authorized by all involved.
• Research Data and Other Materials Availability
  The contents are already available.

REFERÊNCIAS

• BAKHTIN, M. Os gêneros do discurso. In: BAKHTIN, M. Os gêneros do discurso Organização, tradução do russo, posfácio e notas de Paulo Bezerra. Notas da edição russa Serguei Botcharov. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2016, p.11-69.
• BAKHTIN, M. O problema do texto na linguística, na filologia e em outras ciências humanas. Uma experiência de análise filosófica. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal 4ed. Introdução e tradução do russo Paulo Bezerra. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006. p.307-336.
• MORIN, E. É hora de mudarmos de via: as lições do coronavírus. Colaboração de Sabah Abquessalam. Tradução de Ivone Castilho Benedetti. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2020.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  28 Oct 2022
• Date of issue
  Oct-Dec 2022

History

• Received
  02 Aug 2022
• Accepted
  15 Sept 2022