Modern Subject in a Countercultural Key: the "Child" in the Work of Valeria Correa Fiz

This article explores child cruelty in Condición animal [Animal Condition] by Valeria Correa Fiz as a device for dismantling the liberal humanist notion of the subject, through the lens of the ontology of precariousness (Butler) and the notion of human animality evoked in the title. The stories analysed depict violence as inherent to all material existence, including childhood – not to empower the child within the modern logic that equates violence with agency, but rather to deconstruct childhood itself and, with it, the very foundation of the modern subject. The epistemic uncertainty generated by this representation reorients subjectivity toward a corporeal and vulnerable existence, simultaneously capable of inflicting and suffering harm.