Jaime Torres Bodet and the Male Pedagogies: Education, Homosociability and Biotextuality in Mexico (first half of the 20th Century)

Abstract

In this work the figure of Jaime Torres Bodet is cartographed from a strong sex/gender perspective, and as an exemplary life, taking as an starting point a broad notion of education as a framework, what it means: culturally, literary and from social and daily life. Thereby a radiography of a biographical possibility as a textual body is carried out. This is what we called biotextuality. From this notion a dialogue is undertaken with literate culture and education in Mexico, added to recent versions of historiography, the idea of autor and a interspersing with the work of Judith Butler on the regulation of gender. In this process gender is proposed as the "hidden end” of historiography, and the powers of new caballeros de las letras are approached. And with the life of Torres Bodet as a vehicle (from his childhood to the first and second youth) we observe the reinforcement of homosocial spaces and networks, both national and international; of their poses, ideals, places and sex-cultural practices; of the uses and scope of the masculine world and the definitions of Man and the men. Finally, the biotextuality of the Mexican educator, poet and intellectual is read as a version of the "masculine pedagogies". This means: devices of education and representation whose its function is to build and negotiate the definitions of the characters of modern life.