Mouseion: The Counter-Institutional Agent of the Literary Utopias of Ricardo Piglia and Dimitris Kalokyris

This article focuses on the function of the topos of the 'museum' in the work of Ricardo Piglia and Dimitris Kalokyris, who have both been greatly influenced by the aesthetic principles of Jorge Luis Borges. In the case of Piglia, the 'museum' is closely associated with the notio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Modern language review 2004-07, Vol.99 (3), p.711-726
Main Author: Kefala, Eleni
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Argentine writers
Authors, Argentine
Authors, Greek
Criticism and interpretation
Cultural institutions
Greek writers
Kalokyris, Dimitris
Latin American culture
Literary criticism
Literary history
Literary postmodernism
Literature
Memory
Museums
Narratives
Piglia, Ricardo
Portrayals
Postmodernism
Utopian fiction
Works
Writers
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Summary:This article focuses on the function of the topos of the 'museum' in the work of Ricardo Piglia and Dimitris Kalokyris, who have both been greatly influenced by the aesthetic principles of Jorge Luis Borges. In the case of Piglia, the 'museum' is closely associated with the notion of the "memoria ajena," which he considers a fundamental feature of the political reality of twentieth-century Argentina, postmodern culture, and the cultural production of 'peripheral' countries like Argentina. In the case of Kalokyris, the 'museum', along with the notions of the dictionary and encyclopaedia, contests institutional narratives by employing a series of aestheticizing processes. Ultimately, in both cases paradoxically enough the (literary) museum emerges as a supreme deinstitutionalizing power.
ISSN:0026-7937
2222-4319
DOI:10.2307/3738997