His curatorial philosophy is perfectly summarized in his book "Os Sentidos do Parque" . He argues that the modern museum director must be a detective of ruins. During his time at MASP, he digitized forgotten ephemera—letters, receipts, exhibition invitations—turning the museum inside out. He didn't want to show the public the pretty face of Brazilian art; he wanted to show the messy desk where the artist bled.

Antelo’s analysis of the obsceno serves as a brutal critique of identity politics. He warns against the "decent" narrative of victimhood and resilience that dominates contemporary cultural studies. Instead, he champions a sort of monstrous, ugly, non-productive art—art that refuses to console the viewer. This is a difficult pill to swallow in an era that demands art to be "relevant" or "healing." Antelo doesn't want healing; he wants the wound to remain open as a site of potential meaning.

. As the Chairman of the Brazilian Literature Department at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina , Antelo has spent decades dismantling traditional boundaries between European and Latin American thought. A Bridge Between Two Worlds

He invites us to look away from the monument and look at the dust on the monument. In his seminal essay collections, such as "Alteridade e tecnologias" and "Seis propuestas para el nuevo milenio," he contends that historical meaning resides in what is thrown away, what is censored, and what is broken.

At the core of Raul Antelo’s vast bibliography is a theory of reading. Influenced heavily by the Brazilian theorist Silviano Santiago and the concept of the "space in-between," Antelo argues that the critic is not a judge who passes verdict on a text, but a co-creator.

Antelo has held significant positions, including Professor of Brazilian Literature at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and past presidency of the Brazilian Association of Comparative Literature (ABRALIC) Portal de Periódicos UFSC Notable Books/Essays O borbulhar do grimório (The bubbling of the grimoire). Disciplina clericalis: desdobramentos Pedrosa-Péret Maria com Marcel: Duchamp nos trópicos