Dry swimming: modes of reading

Abstract

Thinking alongside Laura Erber's poem “versos de circunstância”, this paper investigates the figure of the “swimming teacher without water” to reflect on the teaching of literature and literary theory, proposing historical similarities between swimming and reading. The paper also summons Kafka's swimmer who does not know how to swim to examine a mode of (un)knowing that destabilizes the boundaries between teacher and student.

Keywords:
Literary Theory; Teaching of Literature, Swimming.