Full metadata
Title
Beyond the Anthropocene: multispecies encounters in contemporary Latin American literature, art, and film
Description
In the face of what many scientists and cultural theorists are calling the Anthropocene, a new era characterized by catastrophic human impact on the planet’s geologic, atmospheric, and ecological makeup, Latin American writers, artists, and filmmakers today from various disciplinary and geographical positionalities are engaging in debates about how to respond ethically to this global crisis. From an interdisciplinary perspective that incorporates cutting-edge theories in multispecies ethnography, material ecocriticism, and queer ecology, this study examines multispecies relationships unfolding in three telescoping dimensions—corporealities, companions, and communities—in contemporary Latin American cultural production while uncovering indigenous and other-than-dominant epistemologies about human-nonhuman entanglements. I argue that contemporary cultural expression uncovers long, overlapping histories of social and environmental exploitation and resistance while casting the moment of encounter between individuals of different species as hopeful figurations of human-nonhuman flourishing beyond the Anthropocene. Instead of remaining hopelessly mired in the dire geographies of planetary decline, the works of Uruguayan writer Teresa Porzecanski, Mexican author Daniela Tarazona, Mexican textile sculptor Alejandra Zermeño, Argentine filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, Colombian installation artist María Fernanda Cardoso, Colombian poet Juan Carlos Galeano, Colombian graphic artist Solmi Angarita, and Brazilian poet Astrid Cabral dramatize a multitude of multispecies encounters to imagine the possibility of a better world—one that is already as close as our skin and as present as the nonhuman “others” that constitute our existence. These works imagine the human itself as a product of multispecies interactions through evolutionary time, multispecies companionships as formed around queer kinships, and biocultural communities as emerging through communicative, ethical encounters.
Date Created
2017
Contributors
- Coleman, Vera Ruth (Author)
- Tompkins, Cynthia (Thesis advisor)
- Foster, David (Committee member)
- Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Committee member)
- Adamson, Joni (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
Resource Type
Extent
ix, 275 pages : color illustrations
Language
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.44040
Statement of Responsibility
by Vera Ruth Coleman
Description Source
Viewed on July 12, 2017
Level of coding
full
Note
Partial requirement for: Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2017
Note type
thesis
Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-268)
Note type
bibliography
Field of study: Spanish
System Created
- 2017-06-01 01:29:53
System Modified
- 2021-08-26 09:47:01
- 2 years 8 months ago
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