Pedro Demenech
This article explores how Ángel Rama, during the 1980s, transformed his comprehension about Latin American intellectuals. This transformation reveals contrasts between two positions: the one that poses the intellectual as responsible for improve culture in society; and the other that seen the intellectual as someone who articulate knowledge and power to reproduce domination forms. Discussing theses questions from The Lettered City, I analyze how Rama constructed theses from his experience as an exiled and from intellectuals exchanges did by him, mainly, in the United States of America. Thus, the article shows The Lettered City as a heterogeneous and fragmented book which seeks unity in what is possible and apparent, changing and democratic. With theses characteristics, Rama’s book shows how fragmentation has become strong enough to resignifying the meaning of culture