An Aesthetics of Liberation: Gonzalo Arango's Neglected Thought

AN AESTHETICS OF LIBERATION: GONZALO ARANGO’S NEGLECTED THOUGHT AND CULTIVATING UN SENTIDO DE VIVIR A Dissertation by DIANA ADENIKE YARZAGARAY Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Gregory Pappas Committee Members, Daniel Conway Amir Jaima Marian Eide Head of Department, Theodore George August 2019 Major Subject: Philosophy Copyright 2019 Diana Adenike Yarzagaray ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I focus on the theme of liberation explored through the work of 20th century Colombian poet-philosopher, Gonzalo Arango (1931-1976). Gonzalo Arango founded the countercultural movement, Nadaísmo, in 1958 as a response to what he saw as an increasingly oppressive political, ethical, religious, and social climate. I focus on key texts within Arango’s oeuvre to demonstrate his aesthetic approach to liberation, while distinguishing between two distinct periods in his work: his Nadaísmo period (roughly from 1958-1968) and his post-Nadaísmo period (from 1970-1976). Arango’s Nadaísmo philosophy, grounded in rebellion and liberation, was meant to usher in a cultural renewal by a people (ideally) rebelling against the dogmas of social institutions and contributing to a creative reconstruction of these institutions that reflect the people’s own needs and desires for self- and historical development. However, his post-Nadaísmo writings reveal a sharp turn toward a theological framework for his liberation philosophy. As I will show, his later period retains the robust commitment to aesthetic living and liberation operating in his early work. In presenting Arango’s vital, yet neglected liberation philosophy, I also critically intervene in the intellectual history of the philosophy of liberation movement. The historiographical work of Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg traces the movement’s geographical and temporal origins to Argentina in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Subsequent histories and discussions of the movement reproduce Cerutti-Guldberg’s historical work. Thus, today the philosophy of liberation movement is considered synonymous with its Argentinian variant. Yet, this dominant narrative represents a singular and incomplete view of the movement. Contrary to ii this history, Gonzalo Arango was already producing an explicit discourse on liberation in late 1950s Colombia, outside the time and place that had been fixed by the currently accepted history. For this reason, I contend that the accepted history of the movement in Latin America must be problematized in a way that questions its limited scope and invites further investigation into liberation discourses taking place outside Argentina. Arango’s response to the exigency of human liberation and the fact of oppression reveals a philosophy rooted in embodied living and affective perception. I argue that this approach represents an unacknowledged current within the philosophy of liberation movement, what I have termed the aesthetic current. As I show, both periods in Arango’s career, though divergent, each represent an aesthetics of liberation that withstands the robust critiques to which notable figures of the philosophy of liberation movement have fallen. To that end, I focus on Ofelia Schutte’s critical engagement with the Argentine movement, which highlights the limitations and failings of early contributors to the movement, such as Enrique Dussel. Using Schutte’s critical work, I draw out five criteria for a genuine philosophy of liberation in order to evaluate Arango’s own contribution. It is through Ofelia Schutte’s critical treatment of liberation philosophy that I re-situate Gonzalo Arango as an important philosopher of liberation and point to the need for a more inclusive revision of its history. In focusing on the writings of Gonzalo Arango, my dissertation will be the first in the English-speaking world to reconstruct the philosophical ideas in this author’s understudied, but enduringly relevant work. Through an examination of his philosophical development, I will show the contributions and lessons of his work that will enrich current discourses on human liberation and oppression. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Gregory Pappas, and my committee members, Dr. Marian Eide, Dr. Daniel Conway, and Dr. Amir Jaima, for their guidance and support throughout the course of this research. I would like to thank Dr. Tommy Curry for his support and guidance in the early stages of my dissertation work. Thanks also go to my friends and colleagues and the department faculty and staff for making my time at Texas A&M University an important learning experience. I would also like to thank Gustavo Restrepo, the Executive Director of Otraparte in Envigado, Colombia, for his support and interest in my project. iv CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES Contributors This work was supervised by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor Gregory Pappas and Professors Daniel Conway and Amir Jaima of the Department of Philosophy and Professor Marian Eide of the Department of English. All work for the dissertation was completed independently by the student. Funding Sources Graduate study was supported by an assistantship and diversity fellowship from Texas A&M University and a dissertation research fellowship through the S.T.A.R. program in the College of Liberal Arts. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………....ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………...iv CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES……………………………………………….v TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………...vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….....1 The Project...........................................................................................................................1 The Poet-Philosopher: Work and Style……………………………………………………3 CHAPTER II PHILOSOPHY OF LIBERATION MOVEMENT……………………………….11 Objections to the Philosophy of Liberation History……………………………………..11 Luis Villoro………………………………………………………………………………16 Jorge Portilla……………………………………………………………………………..24 The Relajiento……………………………………………………………………………25 The Apretado…………………………………………………………………………….28 Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg and Ofelia Schutte…………………………………………...33 Gonzalo Arango………………………………………………………………………….39 Philosophers of Liberation……………………………………………………………….45 CHAPTER III NADAÍSMO AND AN AESTHETICS OF LIBERATION……………………..48 Situating the Aesthetic: The Search for a Liberating Aesthetic………………………….48 The Aesthetics of Nadaísmo: Beginnings………………………………………………..54 Poetry and the Poet………………………………………………………………………61 An Aesthetics of Liberation: Nadaísmo………………………………………………….68 Nadaísmo and Life……………………………………………………………………….69 Nadaísmo: At the End……………………………………………………………………77 CHAPTER IV POST-NADAÍSMO AND THE THEOLOGICAL TURN………………………79 Goodbye to Nadaísmo……………………………………………………………………79 The Theological Turn……………………………………………………………………82 The Return of the Poet and Re-Emergence of Rejection...................................................87 Language of the Poet…………………………………………………………………….87 Rejection of Sin…………………………………………………………………………..96 vi An Aesthetics of Liberation: Creativity and Bodily Living……………………………...99 Community of Life and Faith: Toward a New Future………………………………….106 CHAPTER V A THEOPOETIC AESTHETICS OF LIBERATION…………………………..112 Theopoetics: Toward Criteria of Evaluation……………………………………………112 The Imagination and the Pre-Reflective………………………………………………..114 Language………………………………………………………………………………..115 Life and Suffering………………………………………………………………………117 Death and Resurrection…………………………………………………………………120 A Theopoetic 5-Part Model: An Evaluation of Arango’s Philosophical Poetry………..124 Liberation in Contemporary Perspective: Drawing on the Aesthetic…………………..131 Cultivating Un Sentido de Vivir………………………………………………………...137 CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………...140 Critical Confrontations con la Obra de Gonzalo Arango………………………………140 Schutte’s 5-Part Model: An Explanation of the Criteria………………………………..142 Schutte’s 5-Part Model: An Evaluation of Arango’s Nadaísmo Philosophy…………...149 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...156 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………………..159 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The Project Writing a dissertation that seeks to present the complexity of Gonzalo Arango’s work, in all its ambiguity, inconsistencies, and evolutions, has been a challenge as much as a labor of love. More importantly, it is an invitation into the work of a versatile and understudied thinker who mixed genres (often combining prose and poetry), challenged accepted literary etiquette and philosophical convention, and understood the value of breaking down the walls between author and work, personal and professional, distance and intimacy. He refused to remain the “rational” and “objective” author and instead saturated the pages of his writings with histrionic expressions, unapologetic emotion, raw confessions, personal anecdotes, and humor that ranged from dark to hopeful, and from playful to derisive. The sense and meaning I draw out of Arango’s work, the careful reconstruction of his philosophies (early and late Arango) into a more systematic representation, is one view and one approach with which to shine a light on his lifelong commitment to both write the world he sees and to write the world one can hope for. I hope this project is a beginning and that others will arrive at his work with their own light and to illuminate all that this dissertation could not. The central aim of my project is one of recovery, which

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