Borges' Aesthetics of Politics

This course will not be just about Argentine
writer Jorge Luis Borges; but it will all happen
in the inconceivable Borgesian pluriverse. The
course is about the aesthetics of politics, and
doubly so. On the one hand, it is about the way in
which art in general, and Borges in particular,
engage in the interrogation of the political
institution of the social-that is, about the way
in which our aesthetic practices try, and
sometimes manage, to interrogate the way in which
societies shape, stage, and make sense of
themselves. On the other hand, the course is also
about a particular understanding of that political
institution of society. Societies institute
themselves in a plurality of ways. This plurality
could be simplified in three forms: theological,
epistemic, and aesthetic. With and within Borges
short stories, essays, and other hybrid forms of
his writing-plus the help of a few political
philosophers we will read together with Borges-we
will engage in the exploration of what we will
call the aesthetic, as opposed to theological or
epistemic, political horizon.

Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges enjoys an
almost mythical global stature. He has been
influential in the world of literature, of course,
but his work has appeared as an inspiring and
sometimes unexpected presence in the fields of
film, fine arts, theatre, and even television and
other contemporary cultural and visual forms.
Borges' work has also been engaged by many
philosophers and social theorists such as
Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze among many others. What
is somehow surprising, however, is that given the
fact that many of his short stories, poems, and
essays have often dealt with political matters,
these terribly insightful and conceptually rich
incursions into the field of the political has not
been sufficiently explored yet. In this course,
Borges will be taken seriously as a thinker of
political forms, political imagination, and
political alterity and his work will be
interrogated in dialogue with four highly
influential twentieth and twenty first century
philosophers: William James, Claude Lefort, Hannah
Arendt, and Judith Butler.