Genetic criticism: belonging and periphery

Abstract

Based on the—nowadays widely shared—assumption that there are different traditions within the domain known as genetic criticism, this article recovers an essay by Jorge Luís Borges, “El escritor argentino y la tradición” (1957), to progress towards the ideas of “periphery” presented by María Teresa Gramuglio—“El cosmopolitismo de las literaturas periféricas” (2008)—and “circulation”, proposed by Gisèle Sapiro—“How Do Literary Works Cross Borders (or Not)?” (2016)—, and thus explore the “dialectical tension” that Élida Lois sees between European and Latin American genetic criticism. The genetic theory is then explored in a contrastive manner, mentioning, beyond É. Lois, authors such as Ana María Barrenechea, Telê Ancona Lopez, and Graciela Goldchluk, comparing them to the canonic Almuth Grésillon and Louis Hay. This article finds its conclusion in the debate—based in works by Nora Catelli and by Raúl Antelo—around the complex belonging of researchers rooted in peripheral spaces to global North intellectual systems.