From the “poisonous woman” to the “asexual intellectual”

gendered and racialized narratives about Neusa Santos Souza, author of Tornar-se negro (1983)

Abstract

This article stems from doctoral research analyzing different readings, in the present, of the work and memory of Neusa Santos, author of Tornar-se negro (1983). Addressing relevant dimensions of race relations in contemporary Brazilian sociability, it examines how current discourses about the psychoanalyst inform discussions about race and gender today. Based on the analysis of excerpts from interviews about her intellectual and life trajectory, conducted within the research (2020-2024), it seeks to identify elements that communicate the particularity of gendered racism in Brazil, with an emphasis on the reproduction of stereotypes about the sexuality of Black women. It thus discusses the representation of Black women in the Brazilian social imaginary, which combines the idealization of extraordinary sexual potency and exacerbated sensuality. In this sense, it proposes that the intellectual legitimization of Neusa Santos implied an effort of de-eroticization and symbolic whitening of her body, understood here as an operation of violence.