Uma Arqueologia do Discurso Biobibliográfico: um percurso dos dicionários biográficos da renascença às plataformas biobibliográficas contemporâneas

Abstract

The research takes place within the scope of biobibliographic information sources, more specifically in the context of biobibliographical discourse, understood as a set of statements dispersed in different sources of information, which bring in their content the life and work of a subject. The method used is that devised by Michel Foucault, at the beginning of his research, called Discourse Archeology, or Knowledge Archeology. This methodological procedure deals with the dispersion of statements, their grouping into units of discourse that have the same discursive formation, that is, it studies groups of statements that can be brought together, if they respect the same laws of formation. The bibliographic corpus that will be used to support this analysis is composed of repertoires of authors, biographical dictionaries, Who's Who and the Lattes Curriculum. The archaeological exploration of these sources demonstrates how the discourse works in the cutting of a domain of subjects to name and divide classes of subjects. In other words, the analysis of the bio-biblical discourse points out how it is possible to describe individuals, for a classification. It is through this type of enunciation that the subject is taken as the object of discourse that classes are formed as “illustrious subjects” or “productive authors”. In addition, it is possible to analyze the discontinuities in the way of enunciating the object, a certain change in style in the way the discourse describes these individuals. These surface effects, easily perceived in a documentary exploration, give evidence of a more profound change in the order of the bio-biblical discourse, refer to changes in the epistemic configuration of this discourse. The result shows an understanding of the history of biobibliography as a discursive formation. It makes recognizing its relationship with bibliographic knowledge. And it explains how this discourse could work in different formations. Long-standing bio-bibliographic work is recognized. It is understood that the bio-biblical discourse is not the product of a progressive process of rationality, but of discursive and non-discursive relations historically constructed and that impose themselves in the order of the discourse of this formation.