Like a torchlight race. The University Reform, from Cordoba to Our America

Abstract

The process of provincial modernization that began in Cordoba around 1870, surrounded the event of the University Reform of 1918, in a context of tension between modernizing and traditionalist forces, which also passed through the National University of Cordoba. In the transition to modernization, the university was a social space of political-ideological dispute, on the one hand, because the university contributed to the very characterization of the city and one of its main functions and, on the other, because the political notables were mostly university students, not only because of their graduate status but also because of their membership as professors. An important number of the men of Cordoba of the provincial modernization, pro-government or opposition, did not face the tension between the wise and the politician since they had both conditions simultaneously. The article historicizes these tensions until the moment of the Reform, at the same time that makes an analysis of the reformist imaginary through the Liminar Manifesto, identifying four fundamental concepts in it: Latin America, revolution, democracy and youth, which worked as torchlight race throughout the continent.