Marx, Durkheim y Weber in Three Argentine Novels: Autobiografía médica (2007), Besar a la muerta (2014) and Cataratas (2015)

Abstract

In this article I investigate the ways in which Marx, Durkheim and Weber (the three referents usually recognized as «founding fathers» of sociology) are introduced in three novels: Autobiografía médica (2007), by Damián Tabarovsky, Besar a la muerta (2014), by Horacio González, and Cataratas (2015), by Hernán Vanoli. Different strategies of incorporation are identified: paraphrases, explicit allusions in conversations and in character stream-of-consciousness, references to essential concepts or, in the extreme, the inclusion of a founding father as a fictional character. It is observed that literature can function as a means to remove solemnity from one of the core identities of sociology: the so-called founding fathers, their works and their theoretical legacies. The fictional treatment, at least in the three novels researched, enables an irreverent approach to the discipline, generally endowed with humorous and/or ironic resources. The question remains open as to whether these humorous modes are not a kind of signal about the exhaustion of sociology (and the social sciences in general).