Overview

It has become something of a critical commonplace to claim that science fiction does not actually exist in Argentina. This book puts that claim to rest by identifying and analyzing a rich body of work that fits squarely in the genre. Joanna Page explores a range of texts stretching from 1875 to the present day and across a variety of media-literature, cinema, theatre, and comics-and studies the particular inflection many common discourses of science fiction (e.g., abuse of technology by authoritarian regimes, apocalyptic visions of environmental catastrophe) receive in the Argentine context. A central aim is to historicize these texts, showing how they register and rework the contexts of their production, particularly the hallmarks of modernity as a social and cultural force in Argentina. Another aim, held in tension with the first, is to respond to an important critique of historicism that unfolds in these texts. They frequently unpick the chronology of modernity, challenging the linear, universalizing models of development that underpin historicist accounts. They therefore demand a more nuanced set of readings that work to supplement, revise, and enrich the historicist perspective.

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9780472053100

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Reviews

The analysis, presentation and interdisciplinary connections here are scintillating; the organization and writerly vision superb-as in all of Joanna Page's work. This critically grounded walk through an eclectic range of cultural products is pursued with grit and panache in equal parts ... a complex meditation on the many faces of Argentine science fiction. -Benjamin Fraser, East Carolina University Beyond its contribution to cultural theory, Science Fiction in Argentina has much to offer media-specific studies of the textuality of comics and cinema. -Derek Johnson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of Media Franchising

Author Information

Joanna Page is Senior Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Cambridge.

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