Beginning to Theorise Transmodernism

Decolonial Thought and Reframings of History through Fiction

Abstract

This article proposes to initiate a theorization of the poetics of transmodernism through a dialogue with decolonial thought and an analysis of fictional re-readings of history in the Americas. Departing from the hypothesis that certain literary and visual productions operate through the critical reinscription of the past, the study identifies recurring operations such as the contradictory installation of modern forms, cultural phagocytosis, epistemic displacement, and the emergence of historically marginalized subjectivities. It includes discussions on decolonial theory, architecture, cinema, and poetry, as well as analyses of the historiographic metafictions Santa Evita (Eloy Martínez, [1995] 2023) and Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz (Maranhão, 1997). The argument is grounded in the epistemological framework of Latin American Comparative Literature (Coutinho, 2003) and decolonial studies (Dussel, 2004). With regard to analytical mechanisms, the study draws on concepts developed by Arnheim (2005), Genette ([1972] 2017), Rozas-Krause (2022), among others. By articulating art and theory within the same relational field, the article suggests that transmodernism constitutes an open aesthetic horizon whose investigation necessarily remains provisional and in progress.