UC Santa Barbara

This dissertation explores the period from 1968 to 1985, when there was an extensive production of Mexican novels and essays that show -albeit with unique characteristics- that Mexican intellectuals were engaged in active dialogue with French thought during the 1960s. Therefore I focus on the points of encounter and reception of ideas that were circulating in Paris at that time, and Mexican intellectuals' intervention of these topics, such as the polemic discussion about "the death of the author" and its consequences: the birth of the reader, the narrative construction that shows a mental process of the writer -which are core issues of the Western thought nowadays.

I focus on how Salvador Elizondo, Julieta Campos, and Tomás Segovia consider Literary Theory not just as an academic field, but also as the day-to-day writer's job. These three intellectuals were active writers during this period since they participated as translators, professors, and journal editors. As a result, their novels and creative essays were spaces where they extended theoretical reflections on literature.

This dissertation counteracts the idea that Latin American intellectuals have not participated in the history of Literary Theory, which has been principally established by European intellectual's circles. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to lead scholarly attention to reassess the contributions of Mexican intellectuals to the Western history of ideas, and the role of Latin American intellectuals in the emergence of what we currently consider Literary Theory.