INTELLECTUALS AND DISCOURSE ABOUT HEALTH IN SANJOANENSE NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The present work aims to present reflections on the production and circulation of
discourses about health in São João Del Rei/MG in the first three decades of the 20th
century, thus contributing to a broader perspective of education focused on social
medicine and population control. At the end of the 19th century, São João Del Rei had
numerous newspapers and periodicals that circulated in the city and beyond, which
represented an intellectual hotbed in a city that, with a history as a commercial
warehouse, also emerged as a cultural reference. Between the years 1827 and 1897, 41
periodicals were recorded that were produced and circulated in São João Del Rei. When
analyzing the clippings from 1829 and 1938, more than 100 newspapers and periodicals
from Sanjoanense produced by printing houses and small centers of writers, teachers and
journalists, which indicates that the number of publications has doubled. Thus, it will be
possible to understand the formation of an urban identity that directly influenced the
structure of the city, mainly in the processes of informal education of the population in
relation to health. This work is part of the project entitled The intellectual history of São
João Del Rei: teachers, writers and literati, which seeks to map the existence of so-called
“intellectuals” in the city of São João Del Rei in the first three decades of the 20th century
and their relationship with the schooling processes in the municipality. The contributions of
Michel Foucault and Sirinelli to understanding the discourses and intellectuality that were
being formed in that period will be used as theoretical-methodological bases.