Borges and Political Philosophy

In this year’s Winter Session, we will engage in an in -depth reading of Argentine fiction writer and essayist Jorge Luis Borges, an author widely but wrongly regarded as "a-political."
In the course, we will reveal the way in which his "fictions" were in fact a massive attempt to respond to the politics of his time—the advent of fascism and totalitarianism—and thus will help us interrogate "the political" in its most complex manifestations: the question of political forms, the question of the institution of the new in historical time, and the question of alterity. As we are witnessing during these turbulent times, anti-Fascists come in different forms and shapes: small "d" democrats, anarchists, Marxists, and libertarians from all parts of the world have experienced their confrontation with fascism as the defining moment of their lives. Not everyone, however, managed to become one of the most original and influential twentieth century authors because of such confrontation. In this seminar, we will offer a multilayered political reading of Borges' fiction and non-fiction writings. Our first approach to his texts will be concerned with his non-fiction critique of Nazism and Fascism in Europe and Latin America. During the following sessions, we will structure the course as an exploration of the theoretical implications of Borges' "detour of fiction," and we will do so by diving into three conceptual aesthetico-political dichotomies that his writings will help us interrogate: that of chaos and cosmos, the imaginary and the real, and the same
and the Other. While doing this, the course will also engage his different stories and essays from the perspective of three modern and contemporary thinkers and contemporary philosophers: political and social theorist Claude Lefort, Jewish German American political thinker Hannah Arendt, and American philosopher Judith Butler.