The Ends of Literature: an elegy. Literature, literary criticism, and cultural criticism in Beatriz Sarlo and Horacio González in peripheral postmodernity

Abstract

Critical tensions surrounding the problem of Modernity and Postmodernity in the works of Beatriz Sarlo and Horacio González. What happened to literature? Is it an autonomous field in the “postmodern” era? What space do literary and cultural criticism occupy in peripheral postmodernity? What happened to the avant-garde movements? Where is the Nation? The proposals put forward by Beatriz Sarlo, in Escenas de la vida posmoderna, and Horacio González, in Restos pampeanos, suggest not only possible answers to all these questions, but also current discussions that trace the critical drifts of these two intellectuals in the face of the emergence of the “postmodern” and the end of modernity. This article proposes to polemicize these questions and propose a potential farewell (that was never given) to the fragile body of literature.