“A questão feminina”: magazines, women and affects in the urban reform of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The following paper explores the role of Kosmos and Renascença magazines as reformist propaganda vehicles during the peak of the urban transformation in Rio de Janeiro (1902-1910). The focus will be on two aspects: the discursive mobilization of the rhetoric of affects as part of the urban renewal strategy and the questão feminina as one of the main outcomes of this rhetoric. While the participation of women authors in magazines was negligible, they were prominently displayed as the “guardians of affect” in the reformist project. Therefore, women were not only required to have a reasonable intellectual preparation, founded on Comtian positivist principles, but were also responsible for safeguarding and preserving the emotional ties that held urban society together during and after the reforms.