Prof. Walter Romero (University of Buenos Aires)
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
6:00 p.m.
Unimail – Room M1130 (University of Geneva)
Free admition
This lecture explores, in the form of a diptych, the key elements of two foundational novels of French literature, examined through the keen perspective of Jorge Luis Borges: Candide by Voltaire and Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert. The encounter reveals how the Argentine author constructed part of his aesthetic and ethical universe through a critical rereading of these two pillars of Western literature.
The lecture proposes a reconsideration of the mechanisms of appropriation through which Borges engaged with the French literary tradition, connecting Voltairean irony and Flaubert’s encyclopedic satire as anticipations of some of his own recurring themes: infinity, skepticism, and the defeat of knowledge.
On the one hand, the lecture will explore Borges’s profound admiration for Voltaire, whom he regarded as the greatest craftsman of the French language and as an enduring ethical model, owing to his crystalline prose and ironic intelligence. Through Candide, Borges’s skepticism aligns with the dismantling of providential philosophical optimism. On the other hand, the lecture will examine Flaubert’s posthumously published novel — a work Borges considered of paramount importance to world literature — insofar as Bouvard et Pécuchet represents the great parable of the limits of human knowledge.
Starting from Borges’s connections with the Francophone world, this lecture, presented by Walter Romero, revisits these two major figures in order to trace their lasting imprint on Borges’s writing.
Walter Romero. PhD in Literature from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Chevalier of the Order of Academic Palms (French Ministry of National Education / French Republic). Tenured Associate Professor and head of the Chair of French Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UBA since 1997. Director of the Dr. Gerardo H. Pagés Institute for Research in the Humanities (CNBA/UBA). Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature (UNSAM) and World Literatures (Master’s Program in Creative Writing / UNTREF). Full Professor at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires (UBA). Director of the Spanish Department at Northlands School.
In 2026, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Jorge Luis Borges’s death, he organized and programmed, through the National Heritage Secretariat, the official tribute Borges: alfa y omega, an official program featuring master classes, plenary lectures, and performances dedicated to the author. As part of these celebrations, he delivered two major lectures: one on the relationship between Borges and tango at Villa Victoria Ocampo in Mar del Plata, and another entitled Borges, lector de Voltaire y Flaubert (Borges, Reader of Voltaire and Flaubert), presented in the main auditorium of the MALBA Museum.
Organized by Los conjurados – Swiss Association
In collaboration with the Spanish Unit and the Department of Modern French Language and Literature of the University of Geneva
With the support of the Dr. Gerardo H. Pagés Institute for Research in the Humanities (CNBA/UBA).