Oswald de Andrade and the Cannibalist Science of Others' Blood

Abstract: In the present essay, we offer a close examination of Oswald de Andrade's call for blood transfusers in the "Manifesto antropófago." Documenting specific forms of scientific innovation and references to blood transfusion in the broader cultural field, we argue for an approach to the "Manifesto" that considers Haroldo de Campos's arguments regarding the national/universal dialectic at the center of Oswald's text while also addressing more fully the material conditions of anthropophagy and its mediating means. In the end, we link transfusion and transfusores to Oswald's desire to subvert European and Anglo-American ideas of hybridity and to employ frameworks external to Hegelian dialectic that both engage in post-colonial critique and preserve more robust forms of alterity.