Debates surrounding race in Brazil have become increasingly fraught in recent years as the once hegemonic concept of racial democracy (democracia racial) continues to be subject to an ever more agnostic scrutiny. Parallel to these debates, and yet ultimately inseparable from them, is the question of what it is to be "white." In this interdisciplinary paper, we argue that whiteness has become increasingly established in Brazilian public discourse as a naturalized category. Seeking a fresh perspective on what we perceive to have become a sterile debate, we examine Machado de Assis and his work to illustrate how assumptions surrounding his short story "Pai contra mãe," and indeed comments on the author's very body, reveal the extent to which whiteness has come to be seen as nonnegotiable and fi xed. Placing a close reading of Machado's text at the heart of the article, we explain its implications for the scholarly debates now unfolding in Brazil concerning the construction of whiteness. The article then develops an anthropological reading of whiteness by pointing to the inherent differences between perspectives of race as a process and perspectives of race as a fi xed and naturalized given.

Comparisons between Machado de Assis and Jorge Luis Borges share one commonality: they all fail to mention any direct relation between the two authors. This article discusses a translation of Machado's “A Cartomante,” published in Revista Multicolor de los Sábados, a literary magazine edited by Borges, as a direct link between them. It proceeds to analyze parallels between Machado's “A Cartomante” and Borges' “Eastman, el proveedor de iniquidades,” both published in the same space, to finally undertake a close reading of the translation. It concludes that both stories are literary metafictional narrative experiences with genre fiction, initially aimed at expanding reading publics of modernizing Latin America. A new light is thrown in the understanding of these two writers; namely Machado is here recast as part of Borges' ever-expanding canon.

Resumo: Esse artigo pretende discutir o conceito de mímica de Homi K. Bhabha dentro de um contexto mais amplo, ulterior ao contexto dos estudos culturais e pós-coloniais, aproximando dele outros conceitos, tais como os estabelecidos por Gilles Deleuze em Diferença e repetição, entre outros textos, além de outros nomes, tais como Silviano Santiago, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka e Giorgio Agamben. Como uma espécie de conclusão prévia, ao final, o artigo confronta o conceito freudiano-marxista de Bhabha às Cinco proposições sobre a psicanálise, texto de Gilles Deleuze, de 1973 -desdobrando as discussões sobre psicanálise propostas em O Anti-Édipo, do mesmo autor.Palavras-chave: Estudos Culturais; Homi K. Bhabha; Mímica; Gilles Deleuze.Abstract: This article addresses Homi K. Bhabha's concept of mimicry in a broader context, other than that of cultural studies and post-colonial studies, bringing together other concepts, such as that of Gilles Deleuze in Difference and repetition, among other texts, and other names, such as Silviano Santiago, Jorge Luís Borges, Franz Kafka and Giorgio Agamben. As a partial conclusion, the article intends to oppose Bhabha's freudian-marxist view to Five propositions on Psychoanalysis (1973), Gilles Deleuze's text about Psychoanalysis published right after his book The Anti-Oedipus.

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This article analyzes Jorge Luis Borges's views on race, as he expressed them in personal conversations with Adolfo Bioy Casares and vis-à-vis his fiction. In the conversations recorded by Bioy Casares, Borges emerges as a man of his time and his social class in the worst sense possible: racism, bigotry, and his self-constructed whiteness inform almost all of his controversial statements on blackness and on Brazilian people. The article aims to expose a cohesive racial discourse underlying not only Borges's private conversations but also his narratives. The goal is to challenge the enduring views of Borges as a "universal" author, dissociated from history and society.Este artículo analiza la mirada sobre el concepto de raza que Jorge Luis Borges expresa en sus conversaciones personales con Adolfo Bioy Casares frente a lo manifestado por este autor en su obra de ficción. En las conversaciones grabadas por Bioy Casares, Borges manifiesta los prejuicios propios de un hombre de su tiempo y de su estrato social. Así, el racismo, la intolerancia y la posición de superioridad desde una auto-concebida albura atraviesa casi todas sus controversiales declaraciones sobre negritud y el pueblo brasilero. Este ensayo expone un cohesionado discurso racial que subyace, no solo en las conversaciones privadas de Borges, sino también en su narrativa. El propósito es desafiar las perdurables descripciones de Borges como autor 'universal' disociado de la historia y de lo social.