two talks on Latin American Literature next week!

Talks by two eminent scholars of Latin American literature will take place next Tuesday and Wednesday. The talks will undoubtedly be inspiring and engaging. Please share, and come yourselves if you can!

"Science-Fiction, Latin America, and the Art of Anachronism: An "Other" Science-Fiction is Possible"

Aníbal González Pérez (Yale University)

Tuesday, March 12, 5:00 pm, Posner Hall 340 (Grand Room) 

After discussing the difficulties of producing a unified definition of science fiction due to its deep and complex roots in forms of popular storytelling dating back to antiquity, including dream voyages and visions, romances of chivalry, and the various utopias and dystopias from the Renaissance to the present, this essay, following the speculative spirit of science-fiction, proposes that a founding trope of this genre in the modern age may well be the idea of time-travel.  In consonance with Foucault's observations about the Romantic discovery of "deep time," and that everything, including language, is infused with history, the essay examines the various ways in which time-travel is evoked or invoked in various works of Latin American science fiction, dating back to the mid-19^th century in Juana Manuela Gorriti's The Yocci Well (1869) to the contemporary "alternate history" narratives of the Chilean Jorge Baradit in La guerra interior (2017) and the use of humor and the parodic homage to H.P. Lovecraft in the Cuban Yoss's story "Volver a Calaforra" (2011). The pervasiveness of historicity, the view of indigenous knowledge as proto-science (rather than superstition), and a penchant towards dystopias, horror, and the Gothic, are considered as possible defining traits of Latin American science fiction.

"Writing Asaltos al escenario: My Journey through Sabina Berman's Biting Humor"

Priscilla Meléndez (Trinity College)

Wednesday, March 13, 12:45

Posner 343

Light Lunch will be served

 

Writing Asaltos al escenario: My Journey through Sabina Berman's Biting Humor" explores the transgressive character of Berman's dramaturgy where the humorous vein caricatures the serious historical, political, social, and sexual power struggles that has characterized Mexican past and present. This presentation will explore how Berman's humorously ironic plays –in particular Molière (1998) and El narco negocia con Dios (2012)– and her ethical concept of humor underscore the fusion and confusion of historical times and characters portraying an array of ridiculous voices that constantly clash, revealing persistent cracks which are never fixed until it is too late. Humor allows Berman to poke fun at what is "official" and "sacred," while opening a serious discussion about fundamental sociopolitical and artistic issues that have frequently polarized Mexican society.