The Literary Will Not Be Justified

• In Event: Inclusion, Justice, History

Abstract

Due to a myriad of social, political, and economic issues, literary studies finds it necessary to justify itself within the American and Latin American University. One of literature’s longstanding justifications is history: fiction, since Aristotle in fact, has been asked to complete, correct, complement, construct, or merely reflect a field of history which cannot complete itself. Literature is justified as the revelation of history’s hidden truth, hence as a tool of enlightenment for students. My paper, through an examination of the fiction of Juan José Saer, strives to demonstrate how literature cannot and does not adjust to history, nor does it adjust history, nor can history justify it. The relationship of literature and history in Saer discloses that literature is without any justification at all—which is how and why literature, today, proves such a problem for the University discourse.

Author

• Brett S Levinson, State University of New York/Binghamton