final exams are approaching and besides cinema and theater I'm spending more and more time in my room to to the finish at least some of the mandatory reading. There is an interesting difference between brazilian readings and the kind of reading I am used to from Germany. The same difference can be found within the lessons, from students and teachers likewise.
People here refer so much more to classical literature! Of course we get an introduction to Maquiavelli, Hobbes, Locke in Germany. But we don't really READ there books. If we do the mandatory reading we get a glimps of their writing, 20-50 pages at most. If we don't we might still pass the exams without ever take a look at their 'original writing'.
Here it is VERY different.
Within the first year, students are obligated to actually read and summarize the most important books of political thought history. So, later in their studies, they are trained to constantly refer to those authors. It is very interesting how they manage to bring in, especially Hobbes and Maquiavelli, into nearly any conversation. Oh, and Weber is also VERY beloved. Sso in the end it did make sense to work myself through Weber for my 'Zwischenprüfung' (= global exam after about 2 years of your studies in Germany).
I must admit, that my theoretical knowledge is not as wide as the one of my fellow students. But on the other side it seems I am much more used to formulate my own thinkings without having to legitimate them with classical authors. But I do wonder about the reason for this difference...
Does it refer to the 'periferical self-consciousness' of Brazil as a third-world-country? Do they have to show to themselves AND the leading academic world (here: USA and somehow Europe), that they are able to work on classical authors in order to be taken serious???
Or don't they have enough 'worth-to-cite'-authors in Braszil? Of course, the University of Sao Paulo only exists for 70-80 years... and this is the most important university in this country...
Sunday, November 27, 2005
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