Borges, historiador subalterno

Abstract

What does it mean for Borges, one of the most canonized and influential writers in world literature, to be considered a “subaltern” historian? This designation implies, above all, a deliberate incursion into the besieged citadels of the guardians of morality and the ontology of hegemonic literary history. Borges is not a subaltern historian in the traditional sense of marginalization but rather a “placeless” figure who challenges and subverts the established structures of dominant narratives. In the Brazilian academic context, especially in history and Spanish literature courses, Borges's politics are often ignored or treated as persona non grata. This is partly due to his liberal and conservative stance, which contrasts with the culturalist currents predominant in these disciplines. However, we argue that this political stance is intrinsically linked to his libertarian project of formal autonomy and the construction of a dystopian “anti-community”. This anti-community can be understood as an “epistemological house” open to new forms of historiography that include the theory of fiction. In this context, Borges promotes a new conception of mimesis, in which the “new” realism does not simply seek to imitate the linear projection of reality but to aestheticize the crisis of that very representation, through the eternal return of horror and the refusal of a ontoteleological view of history. In other words, he utilizes the realism “forbidden” to historians to question the inherent limitations and contradictions in the attempt to capture reality through language, proposing a new way to desublimate the metaphysics of objectivity and identitarianism, through a Nietzschean perspective beyond good and evil.