FROM THE THEATRICALIZATION OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE TO THE POLITICS OF THE PERFORMATIVE

Abstract

Inspired by the opportunity to pay tribute to Professor Maria Marta Furlanetto, I return to my Master’s dissertation (Daltoé dos Anjos, 2003)—under her guidance—to discuss her importance at the beginning of my journey into Materialist Discourse Analysis. Revisiting my writings on what I then called “the theatricalization of political discourse,” when I analyzed interviews with candidates for the electoral process before and after the Brazilian 2000 elections and retrieving my Ph.D. dissertation (Daltoé, 2011) on Lula’s metaphors, I seek to understand Jair Bolsonaro’s government political discourse. From the theatricalization of political discourse to Pêcheux’s contribution to the politics of the performative, I analyze how the relationship between politics and theater changes in my trajectory while remaining fruitful for understanding the functioning of the political sphere.