Tradition, past and resistance: catholic and baroque influences in the journalistic work of Otto Maria Carpeaux

Abstract

This article presents partial results of an ongoing PhD research in Sociology. It presents the hypothesis that situates Carpeaux in a continuity x inflection dialectic sustained by categories, such as: tradition, past and resistance. The objective was to measure the impact of Carpeaux’s critical production between the 1940s and 50s on his militant performance in the 1960s, besides demonstrating how Carpeaux articulated the Baroque as his main cultural capital in order to allocate himself in the Brazilian intellectual field in his first decade in the country. After the 1964 Coup, Carpeaux would make the elements of his dialectic more evident by assuming positions critical to a Baroque Sociology so important in the set of his work in previous decades. This criticism, however, did not imply a complete abandonment of the Ba-roque worldview’s relevance and influence in his life and work. Therefore, in the 1960s, there was an almost fusion of the Baroque worldview in Carpeaux with the theme of the lefts assumed by him in the context of cultural resistance to the civil-military dictatorship.