Abstract
This paper discusses the presence (or rather absence) of Brazilian women in the history of modern philosophy. We perform a comparative analysis of the intellectual production of two thinkers who lived in very different moments of Brazilian society but whose theories shared multiple connections. Rosa Egipcíaca was a mystic writer and slave who lived from 1719 to 1771 and circulated between Africa, Brazil, and Portugal. Estamira was an improbable juxtaposition of a metaphysical thinker and a garbage collector, who lived in Rio de Janeiro from 1941 to 2011. Comparing the intellectual production of a thinker who lived during the “modern” period with the thoughts of a contemporary woman exposes the temporal distance that separates them and helps us problematize the very question of temporality as it has often been applied to the metropolis and colonies.
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Notes
- 1.
We prefer to use here the term “slave” instead of the more precise alternative, “enslaved,” to emphasize the symbolic mechanisms used by colonizers to encrypt and silence the intellectual production of the population with African origins in Brazil.
- 2.
In the documentary that introduces Estamira to a wider audience, Estamira reads her own diagnosis: “I certify that Estamira Gomes de Souza, with a psychotic picture of chronic evolution, auditory hallucinations, mystical discourse, must remain in psychiatric treatment, continuing, continued” (Estamira & Prado, 2013, p. 53). Later it becomes apparent how an awareness of the condition called insanity structures criticisms of medical institutions.
- 3.
On Bárbara Heliodora’s literary production (including the authorship of the poems attributed to her), cf. Coelho (2002), pp. 85–86. One reason for the discrepancy between the study of the two writers is that Rosa Egipcíaca’s written work was only discovered in the 1980s. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how her name is less recognized than that of her successor from Minas Gerais. This deficiency has gradually begun to be addressed; see, for example, the entry “Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz” in the Brazilian Women Dictionary, published in 2000 (Schumaher & Vital Brazil (2000), p. 487).
- 4.
The Independence of Brazil from Portugal happened in 1822; in 1888, Brazil became the last country in the world to abolish slavery.
- 5.
Mott convincingly argues why we should attribute to Rosa Egipcíaca the foundation of this institution, although the official history of the Brazilian Church omits her name. It is certainly due to her being black, ex-slave, and a woman. Instead, it attributes the creation of Recolhimento do Parto to the bishop of the city of Rio de Janeiro at that time. See Mott (1993), pp. 255–278.
- 6.
Maria Theresa de Jesús Arvelos affirms, in her testimony in the process against Father Lopes, that the book was in her house, but that she no longer knows its whereabouts (Holy Office Tribunal, Lisbon Inquisition, proc. 2901, fol. 116). Rosa Egipcíaca informs the inquisitors of the title of her book, stating that a voice she heard “in the understanding” had ordered the composition of the work.
- 7.
The irony of the fate of the book is that it was burned by a man belonging to the ecclesiastical structure, thus anticipating the Inquisition. Although moved by the impulse to protect Rosa Egipcíaca from the accusation of heresy, the gesture of destroying evidence against her exemplifies the general procedures aimed at black women in the colony.
- 8.
On the impossibility of signing a text, cf. Derrida (1972), pp. 365–393.
- 9.
There is free access to the film at Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Interativismo_Estamira_Filme Consulted on 11/06/2019.
- 10.
Later in this paper, we will examine the proximity/distance between the apocalyptic speech and tonality of the voices of Estamira and Artaud.
- 11.
We did not attempt to maintain the register of eighteenth-century Portuguese language in this English version, nor the peculiar locution of Rosa Egipcíaca.
- 12.
Again using the condescending attitude that permeates his entire book, Mott says that the story is “childish,” and asks “that the reader be patient with the claudicating style” (Mott, 1993, pp. 549–550). We try to distance ourselves from this attitude.
- 13.
At the time, the Paço Imperial, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, near the 15th Square, faced the sea; it has since been torn razed to the ground.
- 14.
Few privileged people can communicate the prophecy to others, under the condition of the emissary’s anonymity (“you may show this notice to several people, but not saying about who sent it”). Idem, ibidem. This letter, dictated by Rosa Egipcíaca, uses an indirect form of diction that mixes the written and the spoken in a peculiar register.
- 15.
The myth of Dom Sebastião, King of Potugal and Algarves, (1554–1578) is pervasive in Portuguese and Brazilian popular culture. He disappeared during the battle of Alcácer-Quibir (Morocco) and was named The Desired or The Asleep; his return to the throne was seen as the redemption of Portugal.
- 16.
As stated in the initial reasoning of the Notice of Complaint drawn up in 1762, during the process instituted in Rio de Janeiro, but added later to the process of the Lisbon Inquisition, Rosa Egipcíaca would have prophesied that it would “flood, and subvert this City”; only the Recolhimento do Parto, transformed into a new Noah’s Ark, would escape destruction, as well as “all the Creatures that would be gathered there, and that in their water would embody the Divine Word to establish a new world more perfect than present” (Holy Office Tribunal, Lisbon Inquisition, proc. 2901, fol. 131). For other versions of this prophecy, see fol. 132 and fol. 138.
- 17.
John Collins refers the reader to a study by the Society of Biblical Literature’s Gender Project called Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Collins, 1979).
- 18.
Cf. The denunciation by Maria Theresa de Jesús de Arvelos, in: Post Scriptum, CARDS3047. “1756. Non-autograph letter from Rosa Maria Egipcíaca, slave, to Pedro Rodrigues Arvelos, peasant.“ The transcript can be found at: http://ps.clul.ul.pt/pt/index.php?action=file&id=CARDS3047). Consulted on May 30, 2019.
- 19.
“What kind of God is that? What Jesus is this, who only speaks of war […]? Isn’t he himself the Punster?” (Estamira & Prado, 2013, p. 32).
- 20.
Antonin Artaud, Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (Version intégrale). In: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXy7lsGNZ5A. Consulted on June 6, 2019.
- 21.
The passage cited appears in the radio broadcast at 36 min.
- 22.
Deleuze (1969), p. 55.
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de Lemos Britto, F., Pinheiro, U. (2022). Rosa Egipcíaca and Estamira: Two Thinkers in a Colonial Society. In: Lopes, C., Ribeiro Peixoto, K., Pricladnitzky, P. (eds) Latin American Perspectives on Women Philosophers in Modern History. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00288-5_13
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