A cerimônia de colação de grau acadêmico: misticismo, violência e ilegalidade.

Abstract

In this monograph, a critical analysis of the graduation ceremony of UFRN was carried out, involving university governance and autonomy, based on the historical, sociological and juridical aspects that determine the contours of this solemnity, with the purpose of knowing the fundamentals and the internal and external corporative motivations that support it as a characteristic feature of the academic tradition. The research was a bibliographical review of a critical nature, aiming to answer theoretical-philosophical questions about the ceremony and its compulsory participation of students, as a condition for obtaining a university degree, as a binding administrative act, the main research problem. The theoretical foundation was interdisciplinary in nature and relied heavily on the medieval historiography of Jacques Le Goff and Jacques Verger, on the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu and on the Brazilian legal system, based on the 1988 Federal Constitution and the Law on Guidelines and Bases of Education (LDB), in alignment with the administrative doctrine of Celso Antônio Bandeira de Mello, among other works dedicated or related to the theme. In the end, the hypothesis raised initially was confirmed: the ceremonial used in the UFRN degree collation is impregnated with mysticism, symbolic violence and is full of illegality, since it irrationally uses medieval Catholic rites; it conceals the power relations behind glamor, sharpens the vanity of its graduates and contributes to the reproduction of the conditions and social structures that benefit the dominant groups; and, illegally, requires the sworn participation of the students, as a condition of receiving the diploma, without legal provision for it.