QUESTION:

"What is central to the governing systems of both the Greeks and Romans? More specifically,

what are the 2-3 most critical elements of any political order as Polybius would seem to

understand it."

TITLE22

“Polybius’s views of essential elements of Roman Constitutionalism.”

Word count:

606

The purpose of the research project is to examine archival sources on the history

of the Juventude Católica Estudantil (JEC-Young Catholic Students) organization from

the mid- to late-1950s through the mid-1960s, which will contribute significantly to the

completion of my doctoral dissertation. If funded, I will be concentrating my research in

São Paulo, in the Centro de Documentação e Informaçã Científica (CIDIC), located at the

Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (Catholic University of São Paulo).

Significance of Study

The history of Catholic student movements in the mid-twentieth century has taken

a back seat to economic and cultural history such as studies of labor movements and the

radicalization of peasant groups. This research examines the role of religion and

establishes the importance of religion within the context of studies of popular social

movements in Latin America, and the importance of mobilizing students and other youth

to a particular social and political cause. My study will complement the work of Ana

Maria Bidegain, José Oscar Beozzo and Alberto Gómez de Souza, among others. These

previous studies will serve as a foundation for my research. This study proposes that

although the Catholic Church hierarchy in Brazil intended to utilize the mobilization of

Catholic students through organizations such as JEC to defend Catholic interests and to

preserve Catholic institutional influence, the unintended consequence of the work of JEC

was to empower and to radicalize young Catholic students, both men and women, in an

effort to address social injustice and poverty in Brazil. The study further hypothesizes

that although JEC came to an end in 1966, its ideological development and the

radicalization of its former members had a significant influence on the development of

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Liberation Theology, which arose in the early 1970s as Third-World Catholic theologians

began to utilize the social sciences, and occasionally Marxist theory, in conjunction with

a fresh reading of the scriptures in order to analyze and address poverty and inequality in

Latin America.

Research goals and methodologies

The study's specific objective is to study primary sources such as letters,

newsletters, conference programs and bulletins in order to examine the ideological

orientations and content of the Young Catholic Students and to evaluate ideological

change over time. Interviews with historians and activists in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro who

are familiar with JEC or who were members of JEC in the 1950s or 1960s, will cast fresh light on

the activities of JEC from a social and cultural perspective. Although political and intellectual

histories of the Catholic Student movements in Brazil have been produced, to date, there has been

no social or cultural history of JEC published in Brazil. For example, José Oscar Beozzo is a

noted Brazilian author and Catholic priest who has written on the history of JEC. Alberto Gómez

de Souza was the national director for JEC in Brazil from 1957 to 1958, and JEC regional

director for Latin America in 1959. By interviewing these men and women, I will profit from

their experience and advice as I move through the wealth of documentary resources in Brazil.

One such resource is a library of cassette tapes containing interviews with

seventeen former JEC activists, carried out in 1988 in the Centro de Documentação e

Informaçã Científica (CIDIC)1, located at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São

Paulo (Catholic University of São Paulo). In addition, CEDIC has an extensive library of

primary source materials for JEC and other lay-movements of Catholic Action such as

the Young Catholic Workers (JOC).

1 http://www.pucsp.br/cedic/

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COMMENTS

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Joseph Holbrook

1222060

josenmiami@gmail.com

Dr. Darden Pyron

EUH 2011, FALL 2011.

Essay 1, 1st draft.

September 1, 2011

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