Redes intelectuales y redes textuales: las revistas del Reformismo Universitario

Abstract

During the University Reform Movement which started in Córdoba, Argentina in 1918, a constellation of journals was part of the process of genesis, consolidation, expansion, and complexity of its discourse and soon expanded into other areas of the continent. The phenomenon evidenced the strong imbrication and powerful feedback that can exist in a certain historical period, not only between practices and discourses, but also between intellectual networks and textual networks. This research presents an analysis of the scope and the overarching themes of the University Reform Movement, underscoring the role played by journals.

Authors like José Ingenieros foresaw the specific importance that periodical publications had when he wrote about “the hundred journals” of Reform. Today there is a new generation of intellectuals and research centers dedicated to document recovery, discourse analysis, distribution, and reinterpretation of the 1918 University Reform. The approaches of intellectual history, the study of sociability practices and rituals, and the weaving of intellectual networks have allowed us to substantially enrich the study and comprehension of journals and the central role they played in cultural history and intellectual production in and about Latin America.

This article will discuss some of these contributions and will bring into consideration the need to make an in-depth study and problematize the relationship between intellectual networks and textual networks, as well as practices and discourses, formations and institutions, intellectual production, and social discourse. The article explores how, from the Latin American perspective, it has become necessary to think of new articulating instances between these elements.