The literature teaching and the negativity of the literary

Abstract

In contrast with the “human” or “post-human” theoretical assumptions concerning literature and its institutional place, this paper intends to establish a “negative” or “unproductive” reading of the teaching of literature. Therefore, the text is divided into two key moments: first, it examines the temporality that literature requires as a result of the effective contact with its objects; then, the essay approaches the process of “self-denial” that literature opens after the contact with the specificity of the artifacts. In short, defending a “negative” reading of literature does not mean emptying it of any ethical dimension; on the contrary, the “negativity” of the literary responds to an urgent political task for the present time.