In Defense of Education: Speeches by Erico Veríssimo at the Pan American Union (1955)

Abstract

This study aims to analyze Erico Veríssimo's speeches on education and literacy, delivered while he was head of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Organization of American States (OAS). In 1953, Erico Veríssimo assumed the sectors of Education, Philosophy and Literature, Music and Visual Arts, Social Sciences, and the Colombo Library, in addition to promoting Brazilian literature and holding conferences on the role of the OAS. The writer benefited from the diplomatic scope to discuss human rights, dictatorships, culture, literature, education, and literacy. This historical-documentary study is based on the precepts of Cultural History, establishing dialogues with Peter Burke (2011), emphasizing the intersection of sources, considering the letters sent by Veríssimo to friends while he was head of the Department of Cultural Affairs; Ângela de Castro Gomes and Patrícia Hansen (2016), in reference to the concept of intellectual mediators; and Mikhail Bakhtin (2006), whose study on discourse was a privileged theoretical contribution to this research. The results achieved highlight the importance of Erico Veríssimo as an intellectual producer of symbolic goods and cultural mediator (Gomes and Hansen, 2016), as well as an advocate for access to education and better living conditions and education for Latin Americans.