Margareth Rago


Luzia Margareth Rago is a Brazilian historian, researcher of women's studies and feminist. She is a professor at the State University of Campinas, where she has been a lecturer since 2000. Influenced by authors such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Derrida, she seeks to establish a specific methodology for what she calls "feminist science".

Career

Academic background

In 1970, Rago graduated in history from the University of São Paulo. Later, in 1979, she also graduated in philosophy from USP. Between 1982 and 1984, she worked as a professor at the Federal University of Uberlândia.
She earned a master's degree in history in 1984 from the State University of Campinas, with a work entitled "Sem fé, sem lei, sem rei: liberalismo e experiência anarquista na República", under the supervision of Edgar Salvadori De Decca. The following year, she became a full professor in the History department of the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences at Unicamp. In 1986, literary critic Sérgio Amad Costa positively reviewed Rago's book Do Cabaré ao lar: a utopia da cidade disciplinar, reporting on the originality and scope of the research, concluding that "this is an enquiry that deserves to be read." In another review of the book, feminist periodical Mulherio noted that Rago "points to a vast moralising enterprise, aimed at taming the working class" and reveals the "redefinition of the family" with the construction of "a new model of woman".
In 1990, she received her doctorate from UNICAMP, with a thesis entitled "Os prazeres da noite: prostituição e códigos da sexualidade feminina em São Paulo ", also under the supervision of De Decca. She has received two post-doctoral degrees, the first of which she received 1999 and the second in 2003, both from UNICAMP.

Post-doctoral work

In 2000, she served as director of the Edgard Leuenroth Archive, an institute linked to UNICAMP, and became a lecturer at UNICAMP itself. That same year, Rago took part in the international meeting "The Body of Women" organised by the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. The event brought together "some of the greatest intellectuals from Brazil, Italy, France and Panama for an unprecedented debate on women", with "internationally renowned names"; besides herself, there were Michelle Perrot, Mary del Priore, Gabrielle Houbre, among other intellectuals. She was also one of the speakers at the meeting held in Rio de Janeiro to mark the centenary of Friedrich Nietzsche's birth, along with José Celso Martinez Corrêa, Fayga Ostrower and others.
In 2002, Rago, together with Luiz B. Lacerda Orlandi and Alfredo Veiga Neto, organised "Imagens de Foucault e Deleuze - ressonâncias nietzschianas", a work that brings together the texts produced at the end of 2000 at a colloquium held at Unicamp. In the same year, she mediated a debate cycle in Rio de Janeiro titled "A política da palavra", which saw the participation of Tom Zé, Carlos Heitor Cony, Ferreira Gullar and others. In 2003, Rago held a series of seminars at the Paris Diderot University, in France.
Together with, Rago organised the collection "Figures of Foucault" in 2006, the year in which the thinker would have turned eighty. In 2009, she took part in Gabriela Leite's episode of Roda Viva as one of the interviewers. Between 2010 and 2011, she was a visiting professor at Columbia University, in New York City. She also coordinated and wrote several articles for the feminist studies journal Labrys.
In 2016, she took part in TV Cultura's programme, in which she discussed the theme of Da insubmissão feminista na atualidade.

Selected works

  • Sem fé, sem lei, sem rei: liberalismo e experiência anarquista na República
  • Do Cabaré ao lar: a utopia da cidade disciplinar – Brasil, 1890-1930 ;
  • Os Prazeres da Noite: prostituição e códigos da sexualidade feminina em São Paulo, 1890-1930 ;
  • Trabalho feminino e sexualidade de Margareth Rago
  • Narrar o passado, repensar a história ;
  • Foucault, a história e o anarquismo ;
  • A mulher brasileira nos espaços público e privado ;
  • Feminismo e anarquismo no Brasil: audácia de sonhar
  • Subjetividades antigas e modernas ;
  • Para uma vida não-fascista ;
  • A aventura de contar-se: feminismos, escrita de si e invenções da subjetividade ;
  • É inútil revoltar-se? ;
  • Do cabaré ao lar: A utopia da cidade disciplinar e a resistência anarquista ;
  • Neoliberalismo, feminismos e contracondutas: perspectivas foucaultianas ;
  • ''As Marcas da Pantera - percursos de uma historiadora''