Politics, Religion, and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis and Sexology in the Brazilian Publishing Market in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the establishment of the Brazilian field of sexuality studies—with a specific focus on sexology and psychoanalysis—during the first decades of the twentieth century. We begin by discussing the background of this field’s emergence, in connection to the concerns with public and private morality that dominated the Brazilian intellectual scene during this period. Next, we explore the emergence of sexology and psychoanalysis in this context through the appraisal of its main representative voices. In order to understand the political injunctions that underlie the emergence and development of the different scientific disciplines concerned with sexuality, we will examine the way sexological and psychoanalytical literature was selected and disseminated by the Brazilian publishing houses of the early twentieth century.