In recent years there have been several controversies involving themes and heritage objects linked to the so-called Portuguese Discoveries. This happened, for example, with the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, an architectural work built during the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo commemorating Infante D. Henrique (the mythical figure considered the driver of the discoveries) and the Portuguese navigators. The proposal for its demolition (associated with a gesture of vandalizing the monument) triggered intense controversy in the press. An identical discussion was sparked by the proposal, made by a radical left deputy with African roots, to remove paintings with colonialist content that are displayed in the Noble Hall of the Portuguese parliament. The proposal, contained in a candidacy for Lisbon City Council, to build a museum dedicated to the “Discoveries”, was another of the strong points of this debate, causing the circulation of manifestos with opposite meanings. The very notion “Discoveries” has been questioned. One of the most complex themes concerns the dark legacy of slavery and the possible need for reparation or apologies from the societies that fostered and benefited from it. As Portuguese expansion is one of the main references of national identity, and as such conveyed by school (namely, through school manuals) and very present in the collective memory and in the places of memory that support it (public monuments, toponymy, literature, school manuals , among others), constituting a kind of mythical “golden age” within the scope of the historical narrative that supports this identity, it is natural that the aforementioned debates call into question, in a very profound way, the foundations of this patriotic narrative. As this is a public debate, which goes beyond the field of specialists, historians and History teachers have an excellent opportunity here to intervene publicly in order to promote Historical Education, not only for young students in our schools, but also for a wider population, with a view to establishing a critical Historical Consciousness, free from the standards and stereotypes of nationalism and colonialism, but also without falling into the temptation of anachronism or “decolonial” rhetoric and, mainly, based on Historical Evidence. This communication has two objectives: 1) Analyse some episodes of the public debate that took place regarding the Portuguese “Discoveries”, in an attempt to inventory the perspectives in confrontation today; 2) Analyse the concepts present in Basic Education school manuals referring to different moments (social and curricular), between the end of the 60s and the present, with the purpose of investigating what changes are visible in the representations expressed by the authors regarding the theme of “Discoveries”. We will use as a source a corpus made up of a selected set of articles published, in recent years, in the daily press and on the internet on controversial topics previously enumerated and, also, a corpus made up of a selected set of history textbooks from the 8th year of Basic Education published in different periods; for both, we will use content analysis procedures.

This study of the relationship between emotion and reason is based on a fundamental assumption: emotion is closely linked to reason. Contrary to the assumptions that consider them independent worlds, this dissertation defends that it is not possible to think reason without unreason (Smith, 2021) and that the task of education has been to seek a government of emotion via reason. In pedagogical treatises it is possible to identify techniques for the production of rational beings, both in the exercises inscribed in disciplinary practices and whose purpose is focused on instruction, in the case of the Moravian pedagogue Comenio and the German pedagogue Herbart, and in those considered more liberal, in the case of of the American philosopher Dewey. Characteristics of these techniques are repetition and improvement in execution after continuous practice, as well as the fight against the forces, energies or emotions that one seeks to control.

To develop this thesis, three moments are indicated. In the first, an approach to both the idea of ​​emotion and reason is proposed. In this perspective, emotion is conceptualized from authors such as Firth-Godbehere (2022) and Illouz (2007; 2010; 2014), and reason, from the perspective of Smith (2021) and Elias (2011).

In the second, some techniques for conducting “emotion” or vital force, as well as producing rationality, are described in pedagogical literature. In particular, some texts by Vives (1985), Comenio (2010), Herbart (1935) and Dewey (2014) are explored.

Finally, based on the techniques identified in the pedagogical discourse, the distinction between emotion and reason is problematized, as well as the contemporary views that, under the pretext of educating emotion, ignore that one of the fundamental tasks of pedagogy has to do with educate reason.

Este estudio de la relación entre emoción y razón, parte de un supuesto fundamental, la emoción está íntimamente ligada a la razón. Contrario a los supuestos que los consideran mundos independientes, en esta disertación se defiende que no es posible pensar la razón sin la sinrazón (Smith, 2021) y que la tarea de la educación ha sido procurar un gobierno de la emoción vía razón. En los tratados pedagógicos es posible identificar técnicas de producción de seres racionales, tanto en los ejercicios inscritos en prácticas disciplinarias y cuyo propósito se centra en la instrucción, caso del pedagogo moravo Comenio y el pedagogo alemán Herbart, como en aquellos considerados más liberales, caso del filósofo norteamericano Dewey. Son características de dichas técnicas la reiteración y la mejora en la ejecución tras una práctica continua, asimismo, la lucha contra las fuerzas, energías o emociones que se busca conducir.

Para desarrollar esta tesis, se indican tres momentos. En el primero, se propone una aproximación tanto a la idea de emoción como a la de razón. En esta perspectiva, se conceptualiza la emoción a partir de autores como Firth-Godbehere (2022) e Illouz (2007; 2010; 2014), y la razón, desde la perspectiva de Smith (2021) y Elias (2011).

En el segundo, se describen en la literatura pedagógica, algunas técnicas de conducción de la “emoción’’ o fuerza vital, así como de producción de la racionalidad. En particular, se exploran algunos textos de Vives (1985), Comenio (2010), Herbart (1935) y Dewey (2014).

Por último, a partir de las técnicas identificadas en el discurso pedagógico, se problematiza la distinción entre emoción y razón, así como las miradas contemporáneas que bajo el pretexto de educar la emoción desconocen que una de las tareas fundamentales de la pedagogía tiene que ver con educar la razón.

Being independent, autonomous individuals in the United States is historically emphasized, and such personal characteristics became naturalized. However, it is one of cultural theses that have been endowed in Americans. The idea of autonomy is linked with the Foucauldian idea of subjectification as a modality of power that operates to establish limits on subject formation and, in doing so, creates new forms of subjectivity. To historicize the American notion of autonomy in a Foucauldian way is by tracing back to a westernization of the European Enlightenment and to analyze curriculums during the period of the American Revolution that produces many epistemologies such as progression, liberalism, individualism. One of the purposes of historicizing the present is to think about how autonomous subjects have been built through the repetition of notions that as a way of ontological colonization, which in turn are eventually internalized as a culture influencing individuals. At the same time, it becomes a technology of the self, so that people are governed internally to achieve self-actualization, as these practices are nevertheless not something invented by the individual himself. They are models that he finds in his culture and are proposed, suggested, imposed upon him by his culture, his society, and his social group. Pedagogies inserted in the curriculums cultivate, develop, and reinforce the ideas that are historically accepted and delivered, teaching impracticality of practical knowledge. It is a strategy of fabricating subjects and the possibilities of change, making visible future through naturalizing consciousness of individuals.

This paper considers the site of the everyday as a contested space of decolonial efforts by women’s club of the Young Women’s Christian Association (the YWCA) to rupture the class, gender, and racial divides in the public and urban life in interwar Hong Kong. Founded by a ground of Chinese women in 1920, the HKYWCA is a defining element in the social and public life of modern Chinese women in and beyond Hong Kong in the interwar period. Responding to the New Women and Modern Girl phenomenon in Republican China, the industrial expansion and urban migration in Hong Kong, and the eugenics and public health movement in the British empire, the HKYWCA operated as an associational space – through its extensive educational program – that helped to modernise health, hygiene, and the women’s body in both the domestic and public sphere. By offering day school classes on domestic hygiene and scientific cooking methods, organising women’s health weeks, tennis tournaments, and girls’ camps, and with a focus on everyday tasks, routines, and practices, the HKYWCA helped disseminate modern ideas of health and hygiene to Chinese women from diverse social backgrounds. The paper shows that interwar Hong Kong is a phase where women’s clubs actively reimagined women’s body in related to hygiene and modern health. It is also a phase that the intersection of domesticity, hygiene, and public health were rethought in imperial discourses. Knowledge and practice of hygiene, as it become a defining element of the Modern Woman, it also helped reconfigure public imaginings of women’s authority and expertise in the domestic sphere as well as in the professional medical domain. Practice of hygiene and modern health in turn became a liberating tool that marked the transition of Chinese women into a modern and public figure. Like the YWCA in other urbanising contexts, the HKYWCA in the interwar period was dealing with an urban demography that was rapidly shifting, ethnically diverse, and highly mobile. This shifting social demography entailed that for the HKYWCA to be successful in serving Chinese women, it had to speak to the distinct needs of the diverse clusters of urban and rural working women. In establishing a medical and social service network and penetrating to factory floors, schools, and working-class districts, the HKYWCA circulated new models of women’s public usefulness. The HKYWCA as a women’s club thus acted a counterforce to the colonial regime that entrenched gender, racial, and class divides in the public sphere. By educating Chinese women to experiment, practice, and exercise modern practices related to health and hygiene and by bringing Chinese women to the forefront of public campaigns of health, the association ruptured the conventional framing that colonialism or colonial presence in Chinese treaty ports imposed an imperial notion of femininity that stratified a class division in Chinese society.