Epilogue: Michel de Certeau's Heterology and the New World Author(s): Luce Giard Source: Representations, No.

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LUCE

GIARD

Epilogue: Michel de Certeau's Heterology and the New World

Our world hasjustfound an other.

3.6 -Montaigne,Essays,

MICHEL

and even more touched bythe articlesdedicated to his memorybyRepresentations, for was a man who never of he separated intellectual activity gesture friendship, for others. had been associated with enthusiastic He from a warm and regard from its very beginning,and its combinationof disciplines and Representations could onlydelighthim,as itagreed almosttoo wellwithhis own pracviewpoints tice of transversality.1
The Space of the Voyage

DE CERTEAU would have been honored by this collection of

Michel de Certeau had wishedto dedLa Fablemystique, Afterfinishing of the New World.As we reread his writing time to the of his icate all question up to the point at whichitwas interrupted byhis death, we can see more clearlyhow and whyaccounts of voyages to the Americas interestedhim. He had begun to formulatethisquestion as a decisive momentin his attemptto constitutea "scias he liked to call it.2Indeed, thisheterologywas ence of the Other,"a heterology the final(and thus the chiefobject of his thoughtin itsvarious modes of inquiry, unattainable) goal of his voyagesof explorationacross the ocean of knowledges and methods. I will first consider de Certeau's essay on Jean thisheterology, To exemplify of that and whichis an essentialpiece in the structure 3 of The Writing ofHistory book.3 The book opens onto a thresholdof criticalepistemologythat describes, the prejudices and conventionsregulatingthe historian's withfierceirony, practice withinhis or her professionalinstitution. Beyond that,three equally importhe tant questions are addressed in innovativeways; these concern respectively in the which of seventeenth transformation century, religiouspractices complete reversed theirmeanings as theybecame politicized;the statusof the "voice" and of the "savage," when in the sixteenth centuryScripturelost the power to speak
212
REPRESENTATIONS 33 * Winter 1991 ? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

de Bresil (1578), which appears in part de Lery's Histoired'un voyage faict en la terre

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the truthand ChristianEurope began to propagate beyond its boundaries the therelevanceof Freud and Revelationithad alreadyceased to believe; and finally of historyin its true discourse the show which for history, help psychoanalysis within returns in whichtheimaginary statusas a strangemixof scienceand fiction the in lead toward other under three The areas words, investigation, rationality. in oneself Other-whether God, other men in other societies,or that alterity out. battles are the most whom played painful against It is altogetherevidentthatthe search forGod is ajourney towardthe Other; de Certeau had pointed out, withoutdwelling on the matter,that all types of travelliterature voyages are the same. Thus he remarked that,"unfortunately, as a great complementto and displacehas not yet been studied systematically are common to both."4In another ment of demonology.Yet the same structures the discusses Certeau de seventeenth-century autobiography of Jeanessay, to mad for close as had been confined who twenty years,as a travel Joseph Surin, narrativein which madness and reason exchange roles, an account that "illuminates the questions that every voyage tries to articulate within the double both geographical and textual,of the opening of anotherspace."5This modality, as inquiry, de Certeau adds in a note,would have developed intoa book on travel narratives.6 work forthisproject: De Certeau was only able to completethe preliminary which should be "On of a noteworthy Cannibals,"7 rereading Montaigne'sessay seen as a complementto the chapteron Lery; a studyofJoseph-Francois Lafitau, aux des whose Moeurs the eighteenth-century sauvagesameriquains Jesuit comparees as an autonomous in a despremiers moeurs (1724) wayfounded anthropology temps science;8 and several additional pieces along with,in his archives,many filesof outline of the general project exists,presented But a first notes and fragments. in the springof 1978, when de to the Centre nationalde la recherchescientifique whetherto leave Europe fora teachingpositionin the Certeau was stillhesitating United States.The centerdid not accept his proposal, and he leftforthe Universityof Californiaat San Diego,9where he made thisprojectthe subjectof several courses he taught between 1978 and 1984. The descriptionof the project is appended here in translation;it illuminatesthe perspectivethat would have guided de Certeau in his study of narrativesof journeys between France and centuries.The proposal revivesregret to theeighteenth Brazil fromthe sixteenth forthe book thatwe will never read, as well as leaves unexplained the originsof in a marginalizedliterary de Certeau's interest genre rarelystudiedbyhistorians. in such accounts. to forhis interest I can onlyoffer as the reasons conjectures othersfromsubjectivefacSome of these reasons stemfromexternalinfluences, In the foreground,there is the influenceof tors of his intellectualtrajectory. who is not well knownoutside France due to his (1905-90), Alphonse Dupront the studentand intellectualheir of unusual habitsof publication.A medievalist, his theCrusades but thenenlarged studies with Paul Alphandery, Dupront began Michel de Certeau's and theNewWorld Heterology 213

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his fieldof inquiryto include all occasions of the sacred, both in itselfand in its He was captivatedby rites,sacred places, images, and pilsocial manifestations. eruditionwithmetaphysical and theological grimages,and combineda historian's This comin interest with a sustained as well as depth psychology. preoccupations was increased by being expressed in a bination was unique, and its originality sometimeslyrical, archaic,and precious,but always language equally inimitable, precise. Dupront was for a long time a professorat the Sorbonne and the Ecole des hautes etudes. He was thus at the center of a networkof historians,without numerous historians observingthe usual customsof publicationbut influencing in and outside the medieval sphere such as Mona Ozouf, Dominique Julia, and of his work, de Certeau. One of Dupront's habitswas to disperse the fragments a hundred in and as places (colimprobable partial, alwayspresented provisional lectionsof limitedcirculation,obscure local reviews,and so on), as if he wished to make the fruitof his studies invisible.Perhaps he wished to impose on his like thatof the holy grail; only if one knew how to discover reader an initiation itstrace could one accede to the sacred texts.'? or forJungian panDe Certeau, who never had a tasteforritesof initiation for a time and admired participatedin his seminar. He Dupront symbolism, of the past, but always with moment to it as a sometimes alluded completed respect and a kind of regretfor what it mighthave accomplished." In reading Dupront's book (published in 1987 and not seen by de Certeau), one begins to and disapunderstand what in the old master could have interested, irritated, de in would have attracted themes notable Three his Dupront junior. pointed Certeau: the question of the Other, the problem of space, and the privilege granted to vision.These themes,whichcan be recognized in all levels of de Certeau's work,were profoundlyimbricatedin de Certeau's thoughtand stemfrom experiences that date from before his being acquainted with Dupront.'2 But if only by obliginghim to influencedde Certeau's reflections, Dupront certainly fromDupront, parhe differed on which on essential his position points clarify on the religious phenomenon and its possible psychoanalytic interpreticularly tation.This negativeinfluencecan be found especiallyin de Certeau's opposite of mysticism. However,it also played a positiverole in his approach to the history encounterwiththe Other and of the historical of the of importance recognition the experience of space. of the pilgrimage This becomes clear if one returnsto Dupront's definition as a "physicalact of masteryover space," a "march to elsewhere" that is "an instance of the Other."13De Certeau often mentioned a long article in which Dupront meditateson the emergenceof ChristianEurope fromthe Middle Ages indeed is thecon"The occidentaldiscoverer and fromitsgeographicalfrontiers: even before or a mission a crusade itself as saw this the earth: of conquest queror the passions of imperialismhad found the courage to declare themselves."'4In
214
REPRESENTATIONS

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withde Certeau's work. rereading Dupront's article,one noticestwo similarities On the one hand, Montaigne is given an importantplace, and his essay on cannibals is the object of a commentary;15 a comparison of the two readings by on their different styles,methods, and Dupront and de Certeau is instructive on visionand the visual intentions. On the otherhand, thereis a stronginsistence de la Nouappropriation of space. Dupront cites as well Marc Lescarbot'sHistoire velleFrance(1609), in which the discovereris "desirous not so much of traveling as of ocularly recognizingthe earth,"and then Montaigne,again in connection withthe cannibals, to conclude: "[Possessingthe thingthroughvision]provides of modern knowledge,whose progressis made in the reading of the definition space.... [Modern knowledge]is expressed in the act of descriptionas a figure for the thing,in other words a shiftingfrom space traversedto space that is read."'6 Such a theme of seeing, in almost the same termsand withsimilarconpermeates sequences, runs through all of de Certeau's work and, in particular, his most secretand autobiographicaltexton the question of mysticism.17 in space itself de Certeau's interest However, it would be wrong to attribute with De Certeau's and accounts of it to his contact membershipin the Dupront. was chroand veryrichtradition of theirdeterminate Jesuitsand thecontribution From its the more anterior and foundation, intellectually significant. nologically in the Americas toward turned its efforts had work,especially missionary Society and in Asia. Littleby littlea complete networkof houses and colleges was established, and an abundant correspondence was regularly maintained between Rome and the diverseJesuit provincesboth withinand outside Europe. From 1547 Ignatius of Loyola expresslyasked Jesuitsscatteredacross theworld to proitsobjectiveconditions to the Roman centeron apostolicactivity, vide information and traditions, the customsand and specificproblems due to the circumstances to submit to the collective host as well as of the the conceptions country, judgment of the Society all decisions taken. There is thus an abundance of precise and detailed documentation on distantcountries.This provided materialfor three series of texts: an interiorcorrespondence, limited to governance withinthe order (of which a large part is preserved today in various archives); the Lettres etcurieuses, whichrepresentthe public part of thiscorrespondence,ciredifiantes of the studentsof the colleges, the families culated in printfor the information of benefactors,devout circles,and social elites; and finally a scholarlyliterature de voyage and otherdescriptions, whichoffer embodied in the relations remarkable of on the and customs distant countries scientific treatises geography,language, and theirinhabitants.l8 As a young historian,de Certeau had been asked by the Societyto devote himself for a time to the historyof its early development. He naturallyread forthehistory of theorder.This closelythese sources,printedand in manuscript, work: he had entered the Society coincided withhis own interestin missionary with the desire to leave for China, although the political situation made this de Certeau's Michel and theNewWorld Heterology 215

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thathe mightbe sentto Cameroon; in the impossible;latertherewas a possibility his intellectualand mystical in where he remained France, end, voyage was first although he made numerous sojourns in European countriesand especiallyin North and South America after 1966. It is possible, as well, that an encounter on his laterreflections on space; this thatoccurred in the Societyhad an influence of education was withFrancoisde Dainville (1909-71), a specialistin the history For several years Dainville and de Certeau lived in the same and cartography.19 led to in Jesuitcommunity Paris,and while it does not seem thattheirproximity existed an intellectual and a there close ties, certainly exchange reciprocal very esteem. De Certeau knewDainville'sworkwell and spoke on occasion of sessions spent togetherover ancient maps, objects that fascinatedhim and to which he dedicated his last public lecturein Paris in December 1985. of the Society, his desire to leave as These encounters,readings,the tradition a missionarydid not, however,create in de Certeau his passionate interestin voyages,space, and the act of seeing,even iftheynourishedit. He had had from to childhood an intensedesire,in his own words,to "notbelong,"to freehimself, of milieu, of a province and a culture, and to overcome the limitsof family, encounter the Other in order to be, at the same time,again in his own words, and "wounded." At the basis of thisvocationforthe Other,which "transformed" of determinedhis way of being in the world,there was a fundamentalintensity in his work.This essentialexperience seeing, a featureto be found everywhere who was also driven on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, commentary inspired a striking by the same passion forseeing: but also external us not onlybecauseit is a journeytoward Vision"captivates" things, in theseobjects which is represented oforigin, to a reality becauseitis a return perceived likeall truejourneys(the it alreadyfunctions In thisrespect, at a distance. moreover, he comes and bearsa little the little inventories and discovers traveler from), place by is already is to see,butseeing to travel to travel: traveling.2 specialrelationship

Speaking the Other In the studies gathered in this special issue, one immediatelynotices and respond to each other,voices of the past of voices thatintersect the diversity of the same destructive and of the present,the whole composinga singlenarrative on the American Indian societies.Underneath the that Europe inflicted violence sound and furyof this violence, de Certeau heard the rumor of another one, of the meetingwiththe violence a transformative more secretbut equally important, to undermine its old cerreached had Other whose shock waves finally Europe tainties.He oftenremarkedthat"no one returnsunchanged" froman encounter withthe Other. In a sense, itwas the meditationof thisencounterin all itsforms, past and present,external to each or internalto the soul, that preoccupied his
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is indicativeof mind throughout his life. His collection of essays,Heterologies, about the of this the It how shows else. ("What interrogation unity nothing terrains diverse over such that a of Other?") produced unity investigation ranges final the In and as history, literature, analysis, the psychoanalysis. mysticism, which each for of the a "science to constitute work are of this stakes Other," inquirylocalized byitsobject providedelementsbut whichde Certeau knewhad not yetresultedin a finaledifice. It is not certainthatde Certeau thoughtsuch a "science of the Other" to be toward which his constructible;rather,it constituteda horizon of intelligibility forhis thought be not This could in its workaddressed itself otherwise, entirety. and equally rejected the pious consolation of global resistedall systematization His lasting frequentationof Hegel, whom he studied closely as a hypotheses. in the Societyof Jesus, made him definitively student skepticalabout graduate to the Renaissance the from of His studies "absolute knowledge." religioushistory quarrels and the Enlightenmenthad familiarizedhim withtheological-political forcesin society. of the in which antagonistic equilibrium fragile they justify way Fromthislucid exigencystemmedhisrejectionof unifiedexplanationsand global theories,but it resulted as well in an acute and almost painful awareness of the limitsof each historical displayed.Thus he could never be figurethatrationality withone method,one period, one discipline,and hence his habitof subsatisfied model he employed to a rigorous epistemologicalcritique. In this each jecting remained on the and voluntarily his distance fromcertainties he established way on the itinerant the institution-an of frontier, impossibleto make sedmargins entaryeven afterhe became successful. withoutprivileging each figureof rationality For de Certeau, to interrogate a stable centerof perspectivefromwhichto contemplatetheirsuccessionwas to of an exempted positionfromwhich theirtotalization forbidthe establishment formto the could be produced. It would thus be impossibleto give a definitive this first enteras well to it be and would science of the Other, necessary replace the formality of practiceswithout prise withone, more modest,of illuminating de This an necessity explains Certeau's reticence delineating ordering principle. would in Wittgenstein; all desire to systematize toward Aristotleand his interest of the de Certeau that totalization a point. suspected missing engender possible of givingup ever producing a comThe price he paid was indeed the necessity was the plete theoryor a finishedscience, but the advantage of this limitation marvelous freedom it allowed him in his choice of objects,modes of interrogation,and criteriaforexamination.21 The science of the Other was thuscondemned to remainan unattainablebut always beloved object of desire for de Certeau, alwaysescaping any appropriahe repeatedlyused the same troution. In order to emphasize thisimpossibility, herenor be satisfiedwith that"one cannot rest not formulas-"That's it; bling or of Montaigne'sobjectionto received whetherit was a question of mysticism22 Michel de Certeau's and theNewWorld Heterology 217

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images of the "savage."23Constructibleneitherby nature nor in principle,the science of the Other,both desired and rejected,was thus the motiveforce of a de Certeau did not provide however, thoughtnever in repose. Of thisitinerancy, fromthe voyagerat his return,he did not feel he any travelnarrative:differing to speak in thename of theOther and command was endowed with"theauthority belief";24he was too lucid to consent to give way to the law of genre and, by a rhetoricof the Other,end in a reductionto the Same.25 De Certeau did not want to play such a role, for he had no intentionof speaking the truth.To claim to do so would have meant thathe believed himself The logicof the positionhe adopted "authorized"to do so, but bywhatauthority? witha determinedplace chosen as the center of power denies all identification fromwhich the law is announced and fromwhichthe ownershipof propertyis organized. De Certeau accounts for this refusal very clearly in The Practiceof between a strategy alwaysinscribedin the logic of Everyday Life,distinguishing the proprietorand the ephemeral tacticsof an anonymous crowd withneither of his preferences;itsuffices wealthnor a place of theirown. He made no mystery dedicated to others,trace withouthis to returnto thatworkwhere several lines, knowingit a marvelousself-portrait: inthis artofdiversion, which isa return oftheethical, I know ofinvestigators experienced institution. within thescientific no profit is of pleasureand of invention (profit Realizing at a loss,they and often takesomething from the done forthefactory), bywork produced in ordertoinscribe "artistic achievements" on itand tocarveon itthe orderofknowledge oftheir debts ofhonor.26 graffiti was not a random activity but In thissense de Certeau's intellectual itinerancy of reading and writing. These was centered and unifiedby the untiringactivity came toconstitute an entirely unusual linkedforhimthatthey were so inextricably that referred,on the theoreticallevel, to the statushe (lirecrire) reading/writing fromthe timeof the Renaissance. of to the society" appearance a "scriptural gave itsprocedures were While the object of thisreading/writing changed ceaselessly, maintained withouttheirresultingin a code, a definitive grid of reading transof method.27 Never portablefromone textto another,and even less in a statement was in a sense this Freudian, completely practice interpretative psychologizing, but forwhat the textto thedictatesof Freudian orthodoxy not in thatitsubmitted it caused to surge up. There is in his mode of interpretation somethingmystea delicate and precise perfecand captivating, rious and consummate,surprising of the textbeing analyzed tion by whichone can followthe subtlestarticulations in order to discoverthe internalnecessity that,in itsturn,revealsitsfinality. De Certeau read all kinds of textsin this manner,from mysticalworks to Thus he presentedthe autobiogfromphilosophyto travelnarratives. literature, up to the raphyof Surin as a remarkablevoyage throughmadness and suffering of and this his access the Surin recovered that through possibility writing point
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to reason. In this agonized text,whose narratorloses himself,divided between an "I" and a "he," de Certeau soughtneitherto give a precisediagnosis of Surin's temporarymadness, nor to distinguishbetween the true and the false in his account, but to "hear what the discourse says of his body,"followingas if by a Full of tactand showingan extreme musicalscore the fundamentalmusicalline.28 of in this manner proceeding was analyticin itscomposition sensitivity listening, ambition.This does not mean thatitwas without and thus foreignto all synthetic forceor coherence; itis because ithad bothqualitiesthatithas gained the respect show. as itsmanytranslations of readers in different languages and contexts, Michel de Certeau was fond of quoting a verse fromthe Aeneid:"Her walk reveals the goddess." This image had for him a secretand profound resonance thathe also found in Flowers ofEvil in the sonnetdedicated "To a Woman Passing By." In similartermshe invoked the image of Christas a man lost in the crowd, in the I had oftenthought, passerby."29 happy to disappear there,"thatillustrious to the this verse of that transferred when he was time us, Virgil, among happy the of work what was at heart his described intellectual untiring perfectly sphere, It was an "art of doing," as he liked to say,thatconsisted"of of reading/writing. passing more than of founding" in the "gesture of clearing a path, without of his admirable and inimcease."30Francois Hartog has drawnup a just portrait itable art: this he traveled butwithout He discovered, butwithout through, inhabiting, measuring, a in inventor but which a certain the and the of he historian, was, way, heterological space ofa new ofa proceeding rather thanthefounder theinstigator without historian territory,
discipline.31

Michel de Certeau would have liked thisway of inscribinghis work withinthe space of the Other,as he would have liked to engage in dialogue the voices from the sixteenth centuryin thiscollectionof essays,broughtback byvoices fromour own century, and then to disappear into the oceanic rumorof the crowd. -Translated by KatharineStreip

Notes
1. On the development of Michel de Certeau's thought,see Luce Giard, ed., Michelde Michelde Certeau(Paris, 1988), Certeau(Paris, 1987); Giard et al., Le Voyage mystique: which contains a complete bibliography;and the dossier "Michel de Certeau, historien,"Le Debat49 (March-April 1988): 83-121. on theOther, trans.Brian Massumi (MinneDiscourse 2. Michel de Certeau, Heterologies: in I have reprintedhalf of its This collection has no French; equivalent apolis, 1986). entre etpsychanalyse science textsin de Certeau, Histoire (Paris, 1987). etfiction Michel de Certeau's Heterologyand the New World 219

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3. Michel de Certeau, The Writing trans.Tom Conley (New York, 1988), 209ofHistory, 43. 4. Ibid., 242, n. 52. 5. Michel de Certeau, "Voyage et prison: La Folie de J.-J. Surin,"in Bernard Beugnot, etimaginaire ed., Voyages, recits, (Paris, 1984), 439-67, esp. 443. 6. Ibid., 463, n. 13. 7. Michel de Certeau, "Montaigne's'Of Cannibals': The Savage 'I,"' in Heterologies, 6779. 8. This articlefirst vs. Time: History appeared in English; Michel de Certeau, "Writing Studies and Anthropologyin the Worksof Lafitau,"YaleFrench 59, Rethinking History (Summer 1980): 37-64. 9. Michel de Certeau, "Californie,un theatrede passants,"Autrement reve 31, Californie, etcauchemar (1981): 10-18. 10. Alphonse Dupront, Du sacre: Croisades etpelerinages, imageset langages(Paris, 1987). The work begins witha verylong "itinerary," whichends on an unusual 11-235, pp. juxtaposition of two citations,one fromAlain, the other fromPascal, as if Dupront had wanted,once more, to cover his tracks. 11. See, for example, de Certeau, TheWriting 38-39, on the "relationwiththe ofHistory, Other" forthe historian. 12. Cf. what I have called, in one of his accounts, "the primal scene": Luce Giard, "La in Michelde Certeau, Passion de l'alterite," 19-20. 13. Dupront, Du sacre,53, 55. 14. Alphonse Dupront, "Espace et humanisme," etRenaissance 8 d'Humanisme Bibliotheque (1946): 7-104, esp. 54. De Certeau mentionedthisarticleseveral times,particularly in TheWriting 241, n. 25. ofHistory, 15. Dupront, "Espace et humanisme,"61-65. 16. Ibid., 95-96. XVIe-XVIIe siecle, vol. 1 (Paris, 1987), chap. 17. See Michel de Certeau, La Fablemystique, 2 on HieronymusBosch; de Certeau, "The Gaze: Nicholas of Cusa," Diacritics 17, no. 3 (Fall 1987): 2-38. See as well de Certeau, "The Madness of Vision,"Enclitic 7, no. 1 of space (whichare also, he seeing,and narratives (Spring 1983): 24-31. On the city, see de The Practice "travel Certeau, narratives"), ofEveryday Life,trans.Stephen says, as forhis mostpersonal text, Rendall (Berkeley,1984), chaps. 7 and 9. On mysticism, de croire see de Certeau, La Faiblesse (Paris, 1987), 315-18. in Dictionsee the article"Jesuites" 18. For a briefpresentationof thisimmenseliterature, nairede spirituality, vol. 8 (Paris, 1973), cols. 1033-35. deshumanistes 19. Francois de Dainville,La Geographie (Paris, 1940); Dainville,L'Education XVIe-XVIIIe siecles(Paris, 1978), a collectionedited by Marie-Madeleine desjesuites, pp. 537-49. Compere, who has establishedDainville'sbibliography, 20. De Certeau, "Madness of Vision,"26. 21. De Certeau, Heterologies, chap. 15, "History:Science and Fiction";see also the textof thisessay. the project forthe Centre nationalde la recherchescientifique, following 411. 22. De Certeau, La Fablemystique, 69. 24. Ibid. 23. De Certeau, Heterologies, 25. De Certeau, "Voyage et prison,"444. 26. De Certeau, Practice chap. 3; mycitationis at the end of ofEveryday Life,particularly 28. 2, chap. p. du quo27. Ibid., chap. 12. See also Anne-Marie Chartierand Jean Hebrard, "L'Invention tidien:Une Lecture, des usages," and Jacques Le Brun, "De la critiquetextuellea la lecturedu texte,"in Le Debat49 (March-April 1988): 97-108, 109-16.

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28. 29. 30. 31.

De Certeau, "Voyage et prison,"453. The musicalmetaphoris myown. de croire, De Certeau, La Faiblesse 292, 302, 304. 13-14. in Michelde Certeau, De Certeau, "Ecritures," 127. Francois Hartog, "L'Ecrituredu voyage,"in Michelde Certeau,

MICHEL

DE CERTEAU

Travel Narratives of the French to Brazil: Sixteenthto EighteenthCenturies

Subject of history is situated at the intersection RESEARCH THIS PROJECT and anthropology.It proposes to analyze a corpus thatcould be considered as a series over the long term. This research continues work undertakenin history and seventeenth in the sixteenth and spirituality centuries;possession (mentalites in the seventeenthcentury;religious thoughtand practicesin the seventeenth cenpoliciesand theoriesat the end of theeighteenth century;Leibniz; linguistic the and in and concept of mysticism; anthropology(possession; sorcery tury) and conducted in Brazil,Chile, Argentinasince "popular culture";investigations at the Univerand culturalanthropology 1966; the regular teachingof historical sityof Paris VII since 1972; the foundationof DIAL, a center for information on Latin America). The project presented here originates from several questions that could receive answersthroughan analysisof the dossier: 1) The information provided by the Frenchon Indian ethnicgroups living in Brazil and on Brazil itselfduring these threecenturiesof relationswithLatin of interpretation America puts into question the relationbetween systems (conand dominant of ideas, quesgrids analysis, ceptual apparatuses, mythologies, economic, political, social, tions) and their historical contexts (institutional, thecorpus under studybya geographical and religious).In defining professional, thatwere introducedin the modifications more to locate I easily bipolarity, hope the productionof textsby changes relativeto the formsof contact(for example to the recruitbetween the Frenchand the Tupis), to the international situation, the reproand so on, and thusto studywhichelementsaffect mentof "voyagers," and literary ductionof a scientific genre thatgoes back to the medievalitinerarium of another in the world) as well as to the ancient odysseysof knowledge (stages how theybringabout thesechanges. In this and and merchants, heroes, pilgrims, oftheFrench to Brazil Travel Narratives 221

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