Universal provincialism? Competition and self-definition among São Paulo intellectuals

Abstract

This review proceed to analyse the book "Lugar periférico, ideias modernas: aos intelectuais paulistas as batatas" (2024), by Fábio Mascaro Querido. The initial focus of the present review is the book's objective of analysing São Paulo intellectuals between 1950 and 1990 and their importance in political and academic debates throughout the period. The subsequent analysis of the structure of the work and its five chapters is intended to facilitate the reconstruction of the proposed interpretation. Finally, it identifies a fundamental misunderstanding that assumes the terms of the debate represent the reality of the intellectual field. In other words, it fails to recognise that the poles and events mobilised to understand the São Paulo intellectual experience are discursive constructions of the agents themselves involved in the competition for the field.