CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Article Title

The Villain at the Center: Infrapolitical Borges

Authors

Alberto Moreiras, Duke University

Abstract

In "The Villain at the Center: Infrapolitical Borges," Alberto Moreiras revisits the Argentinian ideology of "emancipation of the fatherland" on the basis of a re-reading of Jorge Luis Borges's short-story "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero." Moreiras begins by referring to Paul de Man's comment that Borges's essays were like PMLA essays. Moreiras suggests that, concerning essays, the more deceptive the more honest and less devious they are; and, therefore, the less devious the more devious. He then considers this notion as he surveys recent work on "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" by Josefina Ludmer, Enrique Pezzoni, and Raúl Antelo. Moreiras proposes an alternative political reading of Borges as a writer of the infrapolitical, that is, a writer of poetic finitude against ideology where a reading of "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" shows us the excess of the popular, a movement towards historical truth that coincides with the movement of the poetic drive towards its furthest limit, towards the truth of the social in its overwhelming immanence. Thus, Borges's literature, in its apathetic practice, is an infrapolitical literature against the biopolitical rapture of politics.

Recommended Citation

Moreiras, Alberto. "The Villain at the Center: Infrapolitical Borges." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 4.2 (2002): <http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1156>

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