A sociedade letrada brasileira entre o século XVIII e o XIX: uma análise entre gêneros no sul de Minas Gerais

Abstract

History, always made in the present, is constructed and reconstructed according to different realities and conflicting interests between political-ideological groups: winners and losers, generally elitist, oriented from the vision and the experiences of men. From this perspective, using methodological references of Cultural History, this study analyzes the relations that the reading of works in circulation in Brazil, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, establish with the formation of a literate society from reading practices, which could culminate in a change of behaviors of women towards the patriarchal social model. In this way, it stipulates counterpoints on what was being readed, why and by who, at this time in the province of Minas Gerais, characterizing the relations between genders and the respective influences that define social behaviors. The presented analyzes are based on different types of historical sources, such as post-mortem family inventories, which provide indicators of literate people, book lists, reports of European travelers, as well as the influx of methodological references in southern Minas Gerais.