O presente estudo procura compreender Edith Stein (1891-1942), personagem emblemática do século XX, através de uma perspectiva histórica, psicanalítica e de um método hermenêutico. De origem judaica, nascida em Breslau, Prússia, dedicouse aos estudos filosóficos e ao magistério. Foi aluna de E. Husserl e realizou importantes investigações fenomenológicas, em várias áreas. Discriminada por ser mulher e judia, não pôde seguir uma carreira acadêmica, apesar de suas importantes contribuições teóricas. Converteu-se ao catolicismo tornando-se monja carmelita descalça. Foi presa pela polícia nazista e assassinada em Auschwitz, na câmera de gás, em 1942. Beatificada pelo Papa João Paulo II em 1998, tornou-se co-patrona da Europa. Neste trabalho busquei, através de seu idioma pessoal, as raízes que fecundaram o seu pensamento e a maneira como tentou responder às questões cruciais que a habitaram como mulher, filósofa, judia-católica, vivendo a tensão entre o judaísmo e o catolicismo. As principais fontes utilizadas foram sua autobiografia, cartas, obras e escritos diversos, assim como a literatura produzida sobre ela e sua época, além de material iconográfico. / The focus of this research is to understand Edith Stein (1891-1942), an iconic XX century figure, using historical and psychoanalytical perspectives as well as an hermeneutical method. From Jewish origin, Stein was born in Breslau, Prussia, studied with E. Husserl and developed important phenomenological investigations, in education, womanhood, philosophy, theology and mystic. However could not be an academic because of discrimination against both women and Jews. Subsequently she converted to Catholicism and even became a Carmelite monk, neither of which was enough to escape persecution of the Nazis. She flew to Holland, but was arrested by the Gestapo, taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942, where her life ended in a gas chamber. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998. This work examines the roots and influences of her theoretical contributions as well as the way she answered the fundamental human questions that she dealt with during her lifetime as a woman, a philosopher and a Christian-Jew. The main sources are Steins autobiography, letters, writings and other literature dealing with her life and times.

Joseph ben Samuel Tsarfati, one of the great Jewish poets and scholars of the Italian Renaissance, first translated the Spanish work Celestina (1499) by Fernando de Rojas into Hebrew in 1507. At present, only Tsarfati’s introductory poem to his translation remains. This study seeks to answer the questions: What may have been Tsarfati’s motivation to translate Celestina into Hebrew so soon after its Spanish composition? How might a Jewish audience in Rojas’s day have understood his work? In response to these questions, this study will primarily concern itself with the similarities between Rojas’s and Tsarfati’s historical situations and the literary interests that they expressed in their works, interests that could have drawn Tsarfati to translate Rojas’s work. Close readings of sections of Celestina, as well as an overview of Tsarfati’s two hundred and thirty-poem corpus and close readings of several of these poems, make up the most important part of this study’s analysis. Through this analysis, I argue that both Rojas and Tsarfati stood as transitional figures during a period of literary change, which allowed them to explore and exhibit similar themes and interests in their works. Their works thus served as a type of “go-between,” moving their audiences from the attitudes and behaviors of one era into those of a new era. Additionally, and more importantly, both men found themselves at the nexus, or point of contact, between two cultures. Rojas – as a converso serving as a lawyer and leader of a Christian community – and Tsarfati – serving as a Jewish physician to the pope – were both in a position to feel the heavy pressures of the dominant culture and to communicate with their Jewish culture in ways that subverted that pressure and power. Both Rojas and Tsarfati were fascinated with the power of language to conceal and reveal meaning and to exert influence. As men of their time, both saw romantic love as having true, intrinsic value, but at the same time used it as a metaphor for the false hope offered by the dominant culture. / text

O presente estudo procura compreender Edith Stein (1891-1942), personagem emblemática do século XX, através de uma perspectiva histórica, psicanalítica e de um método hermenêutico. De origem judaica, nascida em Breslau, Prússia, dedicouse aos estudos filosóficos e ao magistério. Foi aluna de E. Husserl e realizou importantes investigações fenomenológicas, em várias áreas. Discriminada por ser mulher e judia, não pôde seguir uma carreira acadêmica, apesar de suas importantes contribuições teóricas. Converteu-se ao catolicismo tornando-se monja carmelita descalça. Foi presa pela polícia nazista e assassinada em Auschwitz, na câmera de gás, em 1942. Beatificada pelo Papa João Paulo II em 1998, tornou-se co-patrona da Europa. Neste trabalho busquei, através de seu idioma pessoal, as raízes que fecundaram o seu pensamento e a maneira como tentou responder às questões cruciais que a habitaram como mulher, filósofa, judia-católica, vivendo a tensão entre o judaísmo e o catolicismo. As principais fontes utilizadas foram sua autobiografia, cartas, obras e escritos diversos, assim como a literatura produzida sobre ela e sua época, além de material iconográfico. / The focus of this research is to understand Edith Stein (1891-1942), an iconic XX century figure, using historical and psychoanalytical perspectives as well as an hermeneutical method. From Jewish origin, Stein was born in Breslau, Prussia, studied with E. Husserl and developed important phenomenological investigations, in education, womanhood, philosophy, theology and mystic. However could not be an academic because of discrimination against both women and Jews. Subsequently she converted to Catholicism and even became a Carmelite monk, neither of which was enough to escape persecution of the Nazis. She flew to Holland, but was arrested by the Gestapo, taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942, where her life ended in a gas chamber. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998. This work examines the roots and influences of her theoretical contributions as well as the way she answered the fundamental human questions that she dealt with during her lifetime as a woman, a philosopher and a Christian-Jew. The main sources are Steins autobiography, letters, writings and other literature dealing with her life and times.

This thesis studies, through a literary and theological analysis of her writings and an examination of her background, how a fifteenth century Spanish nun called Teresa de Cartagena dealt spiritually with disability. She was physically disabled, having become deaf as an adult but also having endured many illnesses. Her first book, Arboleda de los enfermos, was written to pass on to other sufferers the spiritual lessons she had learned from her own suffering; that suffering was good because it had saved her from sin and had brought her to God. Her second work, Admiraçión operum Dey, was written to answer those who had criticised her for the act of writing because of her gender, at that time a disability for any woman wishing to write or teach. She justified her writing as a special work of God, but did not claim mystical direct divine inspiration. Teresa was a member of a prominent family of Jewish Christians (conversos). At the time she was writing, the second half of the fifteenth century, anti-converso prejudice and violence were growing in Spain. This culminated in the introduction of the Inquisition in order to deal with the so-called 'judaising conversos'. In these circumstances her conversa status was a distinct social disability, but there is no express mention of this in her writings. However, there are traces in her writings of converso concerns, and of a specifically converso theology. Although there have been many studies of Teresa de Cartagena from the viewpoints of medieval Spanish literature, disability studies, feminist history and her use of rhetorical techniques, there has been no in depth study of her theology and spirituality. This thesis demonstrates that, although in general these were orthodox and unoriginal, they were unusual for a woman of her time and background.