Introduction

Chapter Summary

This is the introductory chapter of the book, which describes Marcos Aguinis (b. 1935), an Argentine public intellectual, as a historical product and literary actor whose multi-faceted professional expressions reflect the converging of global and regional trends of public intellectuals enunciating national programs of modernization. It engages in a diversified analysis of Marcos Aguinis, the Secretary of Culture and prolific writer, whose civic program for cultural democratization provides the backdrop for a study of his literary oeuvre, spanning the genres of essay, dialogue, and novel. The book starts with the historical context of the modern person called a public intellectual, and delineates the traditions, both regional and global, that Aguinis draws on in attempting to bring about modernity and democracy in Argentina. It engages Aguinis's writings, produced between the years 1990-2002, after his tenure in the government concluded.

Keywords: Argentina; democratization; Marcos Aguinis