In the context of the growing political instability and deepening economic crisis in Uruguay during the 1960s and early 1970s, the thesis examines two propositions. The first is that politically informed intellectuals, though disaffected or marginalised, will integrate themselves into the political mainstream if circumstances demand and a suitable vehicle allows them to participate usefully in the political process. The second is that, in the Uruguayan case, an expanded notion of dialogue is essential in analysing how this was accomplished, partly because the idea of dialogue was a necessary part of how they worked together and communicated with their public, and partly because dialogue was seen as a crucial element in reforming the nation and as the basis of the relationship between the political party that was to be the agent of such reform and its potential constituency. The thesis begins by examining how the so-called 1945 and 1960s generations overcame intergenerational squabbles and worked together, with the help of an expanding publishing industry, to create a public for their meditations on Uruguay's problems. Then, after briefly outlining the importance of dialogue to the essay as a genre and its role in developing national identity in Latin America, the study examines essays on the state of Uruguay by four major writers in the 1960s: Roberto Ares Pons, Alberto Methol Ferr??, Carlos Maggi and Washington Lockhart. The thesis then traces the intelligentsia's role in the several attempts to heal the rifts within the Uruguayan left and in the formation of the centre left coalition, the Frente Amplio, in 1971, to show how the notion of dialogue was incorporated into its structure, mode of operation and political program. The final section, a case study of Mario Benedetti's political activities and propagandist essays of 1971-1973, examines the contradictions of working as a committed intellectual when the very conditions necessary for intellectual life are breaking down. The thesis concludes that the resurrection of the nation as a site for dialogue with and among all members of society, a project in which the intelligentsia had enthusiastically participated, foundered because drastic political polarisation permitted only one militarist and monologic solution.

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