Federico Fridman
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SECRET SOCIETIES IN LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE: POSITIONING THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Federico Fridman May 2014 © Copyright by Federico Fridman, 2014. All rights reserved. iii Secret Societies in Latin American Literature: Positioning the Intellectual Elite Federico Fridman, Ph.D. Cornell University 20014 Abstract In the literary and intellectual work of writers from Mexico and Argentina—specifically, Macedonio Fernández, Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, and Octavio Paz—I examine the role of hermetic communities. I argue that the narratives about these groups reveal obscured features of the circles in which these writers participated. In their narratives, they delineate strategies that a secret society, a group of conspirators, a brotherhood, or an avant-garde of intellectuals follows as it seeks to create a new order, to foster cultural hegemony, and/or to conspire against political regimes. The model of these organizations functions as a self-referential imaginary entity that informs the actual formation of intellectual elites in the region. The narratives themselves reflect esoteric knowledge, oaths, and rituals of initiation while revolving around still more clandestine concepts, such as the secret, the sacred, and sacrifice. As the textual structure resonates with the structure of the writers’ closed organizations, it also sheds light on their ideological and political perspectives on society at large and on the power of the State that they aim to undermine or defend. I also particularly study the exchange of ideas that existed between Latin American writers and Roger Caillois, a founding member of the Collège de Sociologie (1937-1939), a research center in Paris devoted to the study of restricted communities. In addition, I analyze the connections with other European sources, both literary and cultural traditions, which affected the formation and dynamic of intellectual elites in the region, and the formation of literary and non- literary discourses about closed communities. iv Biography Federico Fridman graduated from the Political Science major at the University of Buenos Aires in 2004. Before he came to Cornell University in 2007 to complete his post-degree studies, he was a teaching assistant for courses on political theory at the Law School and in the Department of Political Science at the University of Buenos Aires. He also participated in the program that the university conducts at Devoto Federal Prison, in which he taught a course for inmates who pursue a degree in Law. He published articles on theory and literature in academic journals in Argentina. At Cornell, he taught Spanish language courses, advanced writing and conversation courses in Spanish and conducted a workshop for students taking a course on Mexican history in the History Department as part of the Program for Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum at Cornell. He also taught the undergraduate survey courses required for the Spanish Major in Latin American Literature and Spanish Peninsular Literature. He also participated in a public outreach program that the university conducts at Auburn Correctional Facility, for which he designed and taught a course on Latin American literature oriented toward Hispanic and heritage Spanish-speaking inmates. He has published articles on literature in international journals and book editions, and has submitted other articles for publication, which are currently under peer-review. v Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my immense gratitude to my advisor Professor Bruno Bosteels for his support, comments, remarks and engagement throughout my intellectual and life journey at Cornell University. His constant guidance helped and challenged me to become a more rigorous scholar. His continuous encouragement was fundamental in making this dissertation a reality. I would also like to acknowledge with much appreciation the help of my Committee Members, Professor Edmundo Paz Soldán and Professor Karen Pinkus, whose invaluable feedback and support strengthened my research project. I wish to especially thank Ad- Hoc Committee Member, Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado, whose comments about my research and his scholarly work have provided me with fundamental tools to go further in my critical analysis of Mexican literature. I have been very fortunate to learn from and have the support of Professor Simone Pinet and Professor María Antonia Garcés from the Romance Studies Department. Having the privilege to work alongside Senior Lecturers Jeannine Routier-Pucci and Cecelia Lawless, has also made me a better teacher. I would like to thank all of them for their constant encouragement and understanding.I would like to manifest my appreciation to the help and support that I have received from the staff of the Romance Studies Department, especially from Rebecca Davidson and Callean L. Hile. I would not have been able to become a scholar and teacher without the guidance of my previous mentors: Gonzalo Aguirre, Eduardo A. Russo, María Lascano, and Javier Trimboli. Thank you for walking with me through paths of discovery that lead me to a fertile world of ideas nourished by literature, theory, philosophy, and friendship. A special thanks to all of my vi friends who have shared with me life experiences that I will never forget, and incentivized me to strive towards my goal: Cristian Santillán, Carolina Golubicki, Hernan Didlaukis, Sebastián Kadic, Juan Pablo Ceballos, Jonathan Lusbin, Nadia Davidovich, Natalia Wachsman, Paula Etchart, Noa Vaisman, Mat Fournier and Alex Lenoble. Words cannot express how grateful I am to my family, my father and mother, Oscar and Susana, my brother Alejandro and sisters, Carolina and Ivanna, without their unconditional love none of this would have been possible. Finally, I would like to especially thank my wife, Barbara, who has cared for me throughout the entire PhD program and especially during the process of writing my dissertation, by keeping my feet on the earth and helping me put the pieces together. You show me how to be a better human being every day. I will be forever grateful for your love, passion and kindness. Table of Contents Abstract…………………………...……………………………………………………………..iii Biography……………...………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments……………...………………………………………………………………...v Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter I. Macedonio Fernández: Narrative and Conspiracy……...……………………….14 I. Martín Fierro: Avant-gardists and conspirators…..…………………………………...21 II. The Wise Use of Absence in Museo de la Novela de la Eterna………………..…….29 III. The Deterritorialization of Language………………………………………….……..38 IV. The Double Face of the Community of Conspirators………………………….…….50 Chapter II. Jorge Luis Borges: Sects, Secret Societies and Group of Conspirators…...…..78 I. The sect of defiance and the knife…….………………………………………….……81 II. Collège de Sociologie and Sur: Secret societies and intellectual elites………….……91 III. Ficciones, a universe created by secret societies..……………………………...……98 IV. “The Congress”: Alejandro Ferri’s treason………………………………..……….113 Chapter III. Alfonso Reyes: The Mexican Connection…………………………………......123 I. El Ateneo: Juventud arielista. ………………………………………………..………130 II. Alfonso Reyes at the center of porteños’ intelligentsia. ……………………………145 III. “Visión de Anáhuac (1519)”: Re-conquering Latin America……………………....151 IV. Latin American Intelligentsia………………………………………..……………..163 V. Última Tule: Mysticism and Secular Knowledge…………………………………...190 Chapter IV. Octavio Paz: The Remnants of the Poets’ Brotherhood…………………...…208 I. “La Mafia”…….………………………………..…………………………………….214 II. “La conjura de los letrados”……………………………………..………..…………225 III. Apollo’s soldiers: The remnants of the poets’ brotherhood…………...……………239 IV. Sacrifice and the origin of the community…………………………………………262 Conclusion………………………………………..……...…………………………………….286 Works Cited…………………………...…………………………………………………….....294 Fridman 1 Introduction The Bolshevist Revolution in Russia in 1917 proved that the formation of a vanguard group, which functioned as a closed cadre existing on a plane above the proletarian movement and which conspired to overthrow the Czarist Regime, was an effective strategy with which to intervene in history and provoke major changes. The echoes of the Bolshevists’ experience resound around the world and reach Buenos Aires, where they inspire a new generation of avant- garde intellectuals, the young Jorge Luis Borges prominent among them, during the 1920s. This group of intellectuals, who are seeking to intervene in their milieu and engender a transfiguration of abstract ideas into real change in the material world, emulates the model of the secret society. These young Argentinean writers believe that a restricted community of avant-garde intellectuals could make the multitudes think through art. They face the question that will haunt the following generation of Latin American intellectuals: how to bridge the gap between the ideal and the real to effectively impact the material world. In the Latin American context, José Enrique Rodó provides through his book, Ariel (1900), the model for the formation of a selective minority of intellectuals and for their interventions in society at large.1 In Mexico, a young group of intellectuals, among them Alfonso Reyes, embody this model to challenge the traditional cultural, literary and educational