Visual Dystopias from Mexico's Speculative Fiction

Visual Dystopias from Mexico's Speculative Fiction
Title Visual Dystopias from Mexico's Speculative Fiction PDF eBook
Author Stephen Christopher Tobin
Publisher
Pages
Release 2015
Genre
ISBN

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Abstract: There exists a corpus comprised of speculative fiction texts written and published from the early 1990s until the 2008 that express an urgency regarding the way vision and visuality function in Mexico. Among other notable elements, these texts feature a male cyborg who repairs his lost eye by gaining an ocular prosthesis that becomes a signal of his warrior masculinity, a female cyborg whose lost eye becomes an emblem of her lack, ocular reporters whose vision is coopted by mass media corporations, cyborg rejects owned by corporations whose lives becomes a reality-show segment, and a cancer-riddled president whose multiple operations are made into media spectacles. Aside from a recurrent interest in the interface between human and machine, these fictions also appear particularly concerned with television as a device that contains enough gravitational force that sucks the viewer into it in the privacy of his own home, and a public sphere-turned-virtualized reality that visual manipulates the Mexican masses. The motif that recurs in these narratives expresses a kind of deep suspicion of vision, a profound deception in new media visual technologies and the forces that make them possible. Often, the protagonist loses his or her eye, frequently having it replaced with some kind of technology that ostensibly enhances the loss of visual perception. But in all of these cases, the enhancement ultimately carries with it an unanticipated form of subjectification to or control by some larger force. These forces trace back to either power embodied in the form of political figures or transnational corporations. These dystopian, allegorical literary expressions are responding to larger, complex changes occurring in the social, political, economic and technological realms within Mexico under neoliberal economic policies instituted by the state, all of which can be read in the construction of these imagined subjects. These narratives express a profound distrust in the contemporary situation of Mexico, the political figures that run it and the mediascape that dis-orders their lives. These narratives register how Mexico may be undergoing a larger transformation within its current (micro-)scopic regime, shifting from a modern visuality of photography and film toward a more postmodern one of the electronic/televisual and the cybernetic/digital. They also suggest how subjectivity in Mexico is coming to be affected and altered by these visual technologies, seeing them as invasive of the culture as they are as penetrating to the body.

Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature

Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature
Title Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature PDF eBook
Author Stephen C. Tobin
Publisher Springer Nature
Pages 207
Release 2023-07-06
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 3031311566

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Vision, Technology and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature interrogates an array of cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk science fiction novels and short stories from Mexico whose themes engage directly with visual technologies and the subjectivities they help produce – all published during and influenced by the country’s neoliberal era. This book argues that television, computers, and smartphones and the literary narratives that treat them all correspond to separate-yet-overlapping scopic regimes within the country today. Amidst the shifts occurring in the country’s field of vision during this period, the authors of these cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk narratives imagine how these devices contribute to producing specular subjects—or subjects who are constituted in large measure by their use and interaction with visual technologies. In doing so, they repeatedly recur to the posthuman figure of the cyborg in order to articulate these changes; Stephen C. Tobin therefore contends that the literary cyborg becomes a discursive site for working through the problematics of sight in Mexico during the globalized era. In all, these “specular fictions” represent an exceptional tendency within literary expression—especially within the cyberpunk genre—that grapples with themes and issues regarding the nature of vision being increasingly mediated by technology.

Mestizo Modernity

Mestizo Modernity
Title Mestizo Modernity PDF eBook
Author David S. Dalton
Publisher University Press of Florida
Pages 187
Release 2021-11-02
Genre History
ISBN 1683403223

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Honorable Mention, Latin American Studies Association Mexico Section Best Book in the Humanities After the end of the Mexican Revolution in 1917, postrevolutionary leaders hoped to assimilate the country’s racially diverse population into one official mixed-race identity—the mestizo. This book shows that as part of this vision, the Mexican government believed it could modernize “primitive” Indigenous peoples through technology in the form of education, modern medicine, industrial agriculture, and factory work. David Dalton takes a close look at how authors, artists, and thinkers—some state-funded, some independent—engaged with official views of Mexican racial identity from the 1920s to the 1970s. Dalton surveys essays, plays, novels, murals, and films that portray indigenous bodies being fused, or hybridized, with technology. He examines José Vasconcelos’s essay “The Cosmic Race” and the influence of its ideologies on mural artists such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. He discusses the theme of introducing Amerindians to medical hygiene and immunizations in the films of Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. He analyzes the portrayal of indigenous monsters in the films of El Santo, as well as Carlos Olvera’s critique of postrevolutionary worldviews in the novel Mejicanos en el espacio. Incorporating the perspectives of posthumanism and cyborg studies, Dalton shows that technology played a key role in race formation in Mexico throughout the twentieth century. This cutting-edge study offers fascinating new insights into the culture of mestizaje, illuminating the attitudes that inform Mexican race relations in the present day. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Hector Fernandez L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodriguez

Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump

Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump
Title Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump PDF eBook
Author Barbara Brodman
Publisher Rowman & Littlefield
Pages 244
Release 2019-06-04
Genre Social Science
ISBN 1683931688

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Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump focuses on utopias and dystopias that either prefigure or suggest alternatives to the rise of individuals such as Donald J. Trump and the changing conditions of America we now see around us. These topical studies provide compelling reading for both the general reader and the specialist.

Broken Mirrors

Broken Mirrors
Title Broken Mirrors PDF eBook
Author Joe Trotta
Publisher Routledge
Pages 236
Release 2019-11-07
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 1000753980

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Dystopian stories and visions of the Apocalypse are nothing new; however in recent years there has been a noticeable surge in the output of this type of theme in literature, art, comic books/graphic novels, video games, TV shows, etc. The reasons for this are not exactly clear; it may partly be as a result of post 9/11 anxieties, the increasing incidence of extreme weather and/or environmental anomalies, chaotic fluctuations in the economy and the uncertain and shifting political landscape in the west in general. Investigating this highly topical and pervasive theme from interdisciplinary perspectives this volume presents various angles on the main topic through critical analyses of selected works of fiction, film, TV shows, video games and more.

SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Box Set: 170+ Dystopian Novels, Space Adventures, Lost World Classics & Apocalyptic Tales

SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Box Set: 170+ Dystopian Novels, Space Adventures, Lost World Classics & Apocalyptic Tales
Title SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Box Set: 170+ Dystopian Novels, Space Adventures, Lost World Classics & Apocalyptic Tales PDF eBook
Author Jules Verne
Publisher Good Press
Pages 12917
Release 2023-11-18
Genre Fiction
ISBN

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The 'SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Box Set: 170+ Dystopian Novels, Space Adventures, Lost World Classics & Apocalyptic Tales' presents an unparalleled amalgamation of literary genius, weaving together the profound imaginations of some of the most paramount figures in the science fiction genre. The anthology spans a multitude of themes including dystopia, interstellar travel, exploration of unknown worlds, and the existential ponderings of humanity in the face of apocalypse, realized through a diverse range of literary styles, from the suspenseful and foreboding atmospheres crafted by H.P. Lovecraft to the intricate societal critiques embodied by George Orwell. This collection not only showcases the broad spectrum of speculative fiction but also highlights standout pieces that have fundamentally shaped the course of science fiction literature. The contributing authors and editors, from Jules Vernes pioneering adventures to H.G. Wells groundbreaking societal allegories, represent an era-spanning cadre of visionaries who collectively pressed the boundaries of the imagination and confronted the societal and philosophical questions of their times. Their works, deeply entrenched in varying historical, cultural, and literary movements - from the romanticism of Mary Shelleys 'Frankenstein' to the modernist satire in Aldous Huxleys 'Brave New World' - provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution of science fiction as a reflective lens on society. For readers seeking to immerse themselves in the expansive universe of speculative fiction, this anthology offers an extraordinary journey through time and space, exploring humanitys greatest fears, hopes, and ethical dilemmas. By traversing the imaginations of over forty authors, the collection affords a unique opportunity to engage with the seminal texts that have defined and continued to shape the science fiction landscape. Delve into the 'SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Box Set' to experience the vast educational value, embrace the diversity of thought, and partake in the ongoing dialogue between these monumental works and the present-day reader.

Latin American Science Fiction

Latin American Science Fiction
Title Latin American Science Fiction PDF eBook
Author M. Ginway
Publisher Springer
Pages 243
Release 2012-12-05
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 1137312777

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Combining work by critics from Latin America, the USA, and Europe, Latin American Science Fiction: Theory and Practice is the first anthology of articles in English to examine science fiction in all of Latin America, from Mexico and the Caribbean to Brazil and the Southern Cone. Using a variety of sophisticated theoretical approaches, the book explores not merely the development of a science fiction tradition in the region, but more importantly, the intricate ways in which this tradition has engaged with the most important cultural and literary debates of recent year.