Estudiar literatura en tiempos de odio y sobrevivir en el intento

Studying Literature in Times of Hatred and Not Die Trying

Resumen

In starting with a question What are poets good for in hateful times?, M. Hedegger (1958:147) in his essay “Hölderlin and the essence of poetry”, tries to grasp an answer for the function of poetry in the difficult times he happened to live in. In an broad way of saying, beginning with the concept “crisis in the humanities”, we set oup a reflection around the usefulness of humanistic disciplines, literature in particular, which endures an increasing loss of social credit as a form of knowledge which confronts the glorification of science and technology, and, likewise, the one which in front of the utilitarian individualism gives more value to profit than to knowledge. Facing a so devastating scenario including some social sectors’ contempt for letters and philosophy, the growing banalization of theory and methods of reflection, a dislocation of university curricula and a too conservative pedagogy, in this paper we propose to revitalize human thought and literature through an opening based in a productive and contextualized dialog with the other humanistic disciplines along with social sciences and even natural sciences. We propose the possibility to dodge the weakening process that humanities suffer, when we become conscious and alert of the fact that their mere devaluation compromises our future as a society, and that in order to strengthen themselves arts and humanities must catch up, via cross disciplines in order to accompany individuals in a new outline of the institutions that guaranty citizens a dignified life.