The Melancholy Left
Starting from Octavio Paz's poem written in protest just days after the massacre in Tlatelolco on October 2, 1968, I will discuss the contemporary condition of the Left in political and philosophical terms as a melancholic retreat, not unlike the retreat of the political discussed by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. This is part of a new book project on Marx and Freud in Latin America, currently under consideration.
Bruno Bosteels is Associate Professor of Spanish at Cornell. Bosteels received his PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Pennsylvania (1995; MA 1992), and his AB in Romance Philology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1989). Before coming to Cornell, he held positions as an assistant professor at Harvard University and at Columbia University. He is currently preparing two book manuscripts, After Borges: Literature and Antiphilosophy and Badiou and Politics (forthcoming from Duke University Press). He is also translating and introducing two books by Badiou: Can Politics Be Thought? followed by An Obscure Disaster: On the End of the Truth of State and What Is Antiphilosophy? Essays on Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Lacan (both for Duke University Press). He is the author of dozens of articles on modern Latin American literature and culture, and on contemporary European philosophy and political theory. His research interests further include the crossovers between art, literature, theory and cartography; the radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s; decadence, dandyism and anarchy at the turn between the 19th and 20th centuries; cultural studies and critical theory; and the reception of Marx and Freud in Latin America.
