Abstract

SOUSA, Sandra. Repairing History and the Wrongs of Its Agents in O Regresso de Júlia Mann a Paraty. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2022, vol.41, pp.25-42.  Epub June 22, 2022. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.41(2022).3663.

In this paper, I analyse Teolinda Gersão’s most recent book, O Regresso de Júlia Mann a Paraty (Júlia Mann’s Return to Paraty, 2021), through the concept of Black psychology developed by Wade W. Nobles. I intend to further elaborate on one of the novel’s central questions, posed by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, whom Gersão (2021) turns into a fictional character-narrator: “can it be that we are unable to evolve in the ethical realm, just as we seem unable to love and feel compassion after all?” (p. 14). At the same time, dissect the wrongs of two of history’s most significant agents, both in the scientific and literary fields, the novel highlights. Intellectually influenced and influential, prominent figures in the history of literature, science, and thought in Gersão’s book were exposed for the same wrong: not critically questioning a world rooted in White hegemony, which erased the difference and dignity of the “other”. Drawing on Catherine Hall’s and Corinna McLeod’s work, among others, about writing history as a redressing process, I also demonstrate how O Regresso de Júlia Mann a Paraty engages in a critical and redeeming dialogue with the past reflected in the present.

Keywords : Black psychology; Sigmund Freud; Thomas Mann; Júlia Mann; memory.

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