Banca de DEFESA: ROSI MARINA REZENDE

Juliano Moreira’s public performance and his relationship with “scientific racism” at the beginning of the 20th century

Juliano Moreira; Scientific racism; Race; Public health thought; Eugenics movement; Brazilian social thought.

Juliano Moreira (1872–1933), a Black physician born in Salvador to an enslaved mother, is recognized as one of the founders of psychiatry in Brazil. Graduating at age 19, he excelled as a dermatologist, public health specialist, and psychiatrist, directing the National Hospital for the Insane in Rio de Janeiro for 27 years. This work aims to understand the thinking and trajectory of this intellectual, whose work confronted scientific racism and theories of Black inferiority prevalent in the early 20th century. The hypothesis guiding the research is that Juliano Moreira's scientific production and attitudes exposed inconsistencies in racialist theories, contributing to changes in the then-prevailing view among intellectual elites that racial miscegenation was a determining factor in the degeneration of populations. The analysis begins with his doctoral thesis, encompasses his professional activities and scientific output, and examines his work in institutions such as the Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene and the Brazilian Eugenics Society. This study seeks to understand how he dealt with eugenic ideals and how, as a Black man, he was accepted in the largely racialized scientific community. The research adopts a qualitative methodology, based on a bibliographic survey and documentary analysis. It includes primary and secondary sources: books, theses, scientific articles, newspaper articles, manuscripts, and documents such as the minutes of the First Brazilian Eugenics Congress. It also addresses the trajectory of the idea of race and its scientific credibility, which permeated the institutions that built the National Republican State, aiming to contribute to the debate on science, race, and inequality. Finally, the research problematizes the silencing of his legacy in subsequent historical and scientific records, despite his notable influence on Brazilian psychiatry.