Other Inquisitions into the Crisis of Imagination: Borges and Theory in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 3305-IDWK-U
This course introduces students to advanced methods of textual interpretation in an era marked by a crisis of knowledge, post-truth communication, and rapid technological change. Our readings will be placed within the context of problems discussed in The Epistemology of Fake News (2021), Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman, Z. Sardar’s concept of “postnormal times,” Vogl’s analysis of capitalism, Sosa Escudero’s work on Big Data, and recent debates on artificial intelligence and its influence on cognition, imagination, and cultural production.
The course focuses on literary texts that offer tools for conceptualizing and critically examining these crises, with special attention to Jorge Luis Borges as both a theorist and a writer. We will analyze how his reflections on infinite libraries, non-human intelligence, repetition, and paradox anticipate many issues now associated with artificial intelligence. We will also read contemporary Latin American authors whose work develops or challenges these traditions.
The course is conducted in a workshop format: students practice close and differential reading of short stories, examining how literature explores concepts such as knowledge, truth, fictionality, reality, interpretation, and the boundaries between human and non-human agents.
Key Issues Addressed in the Course
1. Knowledge in Crisis: Post-Truth, Opinion, and Belief
How literature helps us respond to the cognitive crisis: the blurring of knowledge with opinion and belief; reading as inquiry conducted under conditions of uncertainty.
2. Algorithmic Culture and “Market Conventionalism” (Vogl)
How literary imagination resists data-driven conventionalism, normative prediction, and algorithmic homogenization; creativity versus informational reduction.
3. Non-Human Intelligence and the Limits of Rationality
Encounters with AI, automated language, and non-human cognition; narrative structures that critique, question, exceed, or parody human rationality.
4. Eternal Return and Recursion
Borgesian repetition, infinite libraries, and proliferating interpretations as anticipations of algorithmic thinking and large-scale data systems.
The experience of reading Borges and of conversing with AI.
5. Interpretation as Inquiry
Reading as investigative practice: traces, clues, and interpretive risk under ambiguity, misinformation, or data saturation.
Interpretation as adventure.
6. Author, Narrator, and Doubles
Autofiction and unstable identity in a world of data-doppelgängers and simulations.
7. Fiction, Reality, and the Crisis of Representation
The blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction; impossible events; fantastic epistemologies.
8. Unreliable Narration and the Paradox of Knowing
Unreliable narrators, interpretive paradoxes, misdirection, and narrative games as models of cognitive instability in the digital age.
Algorithmic manipulation.
9. AI-Generated Texts and Non-Human Imagination
How machine-generated language simulates knowledge without possessing it; how it produces texts that imitate meaning, destabilize interpretation, and reveal the fragility of our cognitive tools.
We treat AI not as an “author” but as a hallucinatory mechanism that:
generates statistical “ghosts” of meaning;
invents sources and authorities;
imitates style while evacuating intention;
produces “knowledge” that is formally coherent yet ontologically empty;
challenges the boundary between fiction and reality.
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge: the graduate knows and understands
K_W01
the methodological approaches used in literary studies within Iberian philology, especially tools for analyzing the works of Borges and contemporary Latin American fantasy and science fiction; understands terminology related to fictionality, narration, and the cognitive crisis in contemporary culture.
K_W02
the connections between Iberian studies and other fields in the humanities, especially literary theory, philosophy, and cultural studies, which provide the context for interpreting literary visions of technology.
K_W03
the basic concepts and principles of intellectual property and copyright, including issues of authorship and originality in the context of literary texts and AI-generated materials as part of contemporary culture.
K_W04
cultural and literary phenomena of the Spanish-speaking world, with particular attention to recent research on fantasy, capitalism, and science fiction, and their relation to debates about the cognitive crisis.
K_W05
the terminology, theory, and methodology of contemporary Iberian studies as applied to the analysis of literary texts, fantasy, speculative fiction, and literary representations of knowledge and cognition.
K_W06
current work produced by research centers studying Latin American literature—especially fantasy and science fiction—and their dialogue with philosophy and reflections on technological culture.
Skills: the graduate is able to
K_U01
use advanced research skills to critically analyze the literary works of Borges and contemporary Latin American authors, taking into account their reflections on cognition, fictionality, and cultural imaginaries of technology; synthesize diverse ideas and formulate original interpretations.
K_U02
independently expand their knowledge of Latin American literature, fantasy, and science fiction, and develop their interpretive skills using relevant humanistic contexts (philosophy, cultural and technology studies).
K_U03
produce and analyze spoken and written texts in Spanish using literary terminology related to narration, fictionality, and the cognitive crisis.
Social competence: the graduate is ready to
K_K01
collaborate in a group during collective text analysis, interpretive work, and discussions on literary and cultural representations of cognition and technology, taking on different roles in the workshop process.
Assessment criteria
Methods and Assessment Criteria
Teaching Methods
Short introductory lectures presenting theoretical concepts
Group work, including think–pair–share activities
Close (differential) reading
Class discussion
Written assignments (group or individual) submitted via Classroom / during classess, without the use of artificial intelligence
Critical engagement with AI-generated material
Assessment Criteria
Assessment is continuous and based on participation and completion of assigned tasks.
To pass the course, students must:
attend classes (a maximum of two unexcused absences is allowed). Absence from 50% or more of the classes makes it impossible to pass the course;
prepare regularly for classes, participate actively and constructively in discussions, and complete assigned work.
Information about points awarded for graded assignments will be provided through Classroom.
Bibliography
Primary Literature (Fiction) - changes possible after consulting with the group
Borges, Jorge Luis: “Borges y yo”, “Del rigor en la ciencia”, El hacedor (1960)
Borges, Jorge Luis: “Tema del traidor y del héroe”, Ficciones (1944)
Borges, Jorge Luis: “La biblioteca de Babel”, Ficciones (1944)
Borges, Jorge Luis: “El idioma anlítico de John Wilkins”, Otras inquisiciones (1952)
Borges, Jorge Luis: “Pierre Menard, el autor del Quijote”, Ficciones (1944)
Borges, Jorge Luis: “Avatares de la tortuga”, Otras inquisiciones (1952)
Barragán Castro, Luis Carlos: Parásitos perfectos (frag.), 2021
Chapela, Andrea: Ansibles, perfiladores y otras máquinas de ingenio (sel.), 2020
Colanzi, Liliana: “Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro”, Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro (2022)
Herrera, Yuri: Diez planetas (selección) (2019)
Labatut, Benjamín: Un verdor terrible (fragm.) (2020)
Nieva, Michel: ¿Sueñan los gauchoides con los ñandúes eléctricos? (2013)
Schweblin, Samanta: Kentukis (fragm.), 2018
Volpi, Jorge (ed.) Primera enciclopedia de Tlön. Tomo XI: HLAER-JANGR (2024)
Theoretical and Contextual Texts
Nieva, Michel: Ciencia ficción capitalista: Cómo los multimillonarios nos salvarán del fin del mundo (2024)
Kurlat Ares, S. G. & E. De Rosso (Eds.), Peter Lang companion to Latin American science fiction (2023)
Cano, L. C. (2017). Apoteosis de la influencia, o de cómo los senderos de la ciencia ficción hispanoamericana conducen a Borges. In S. G. Kurlat Ares (Ed.), La ciencia ficción en América Latina: Aproximaciones teóricas al imaginario de la experimentación cultural (Revista Iberoamericana, 83(259–260), 383–400).
Selden, Raman: La teoría literaria contemporánea
Tyson, Lois: Critical Theory Today
Żychliński, Arkadiusz: Fikcjogramy
Post-truth, epistemology, media (fragments)
Bernecker et al., The Epistemology of Fake News
Borji, “A categorical archive of ChatGPT failures”
Bottou & Schölkopf, “Borges and AI”
Harsin, “A Critical Guide to Fake News”
Harsin, “Post-Truth and Critical Communication Studies”
Pariser, El filtro burbuja
Sardar, "Welcome to Postnormal Times”
Sardar, “The Smog of Ignorance”
Schaberg, The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth
Sosa Escudero, Walter, "Borges, big data y yo" (2020)
Vogl, Joseph: Capital y resentimiento (2023)
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: