抄録
This essay discusses Oswald de Andrade’s philosophy and analyzes his thoughts on religion, including his criticism of Christianity. Oswald, a Brazilian critic, novelist, and philosopher, was a central figure of Brazilian modernism in the 1920s, and his writings on religion were strongly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche. Driven by Nietzsche’s influence, Oswald expressed his criticism of Christianity through the modernist art movement and Marxism. However, Oswald spent his later life not only expressing his opinions about religion but also reconstructing an original Brazilian religion to unify Brazil. He argued that a new society could be created using anthropophagic rituals. It is important to discuss Oswald’s assertions on religion because they connect anthropophagy, which was his lifelong focus, with his ambition to (re)construct the original Brazilian culture. This essay explains the relationship between anthropophagic rituals and the newly emerging Brazilian community while arguing that a certain subjectivity comes from such an “anthropophagite stance.” By reflecting on our bodies as expressions of the self and invasions of the other, Oswald’s perspective enables us to be exposed to the other and “ingest” them.
