Description
Book SynopsisArgues for the importance of ecocritical approaches within the field of Mexican Studies. This book engages with established and up-and-coming Latin American ecocritical scholars who argue that Latin America offers an important corrective to Anglocentric approaches to the Anthropocene by foregrounding colonialism and empire.
Trade ReviewCarolyn Fornoff’s insightful and clearly written
Subjunctive Aesthetics draws inspiration from a grammatical mood expressing uncertainty and emotion to offer a new interpretation of twenty-first-century Mexican cultural production addressing ecological catastrophe. An innovative contribution to Latin American Environmental Humanities research,
Subjunctive Aesthetics stakes an eloquent claim for the capacity of literature, visual arts, and film to imagine the possibilities of a post-extractivist world." —Charlotte Rogers, author of
Mourning El Dorado: Literature and Extractivism in the Contemporary American Tropics"Brilliant and wide-ranging,
Subjunctive Aesthetics shows how, instead of merely translated into cultural responses based on a straightforward rendering of factual evidence, the inescapable reality of the current ecological crisis has been reimagined by writers, visual artists, and filmmakers in alternative, hypothetical, and speculative ways. This book is fundamental for anyone interested in contemporary Mexican culture and new directions in the Environmental Humanities."—Victoria Saramago, author of
Fictional Environments: Mimesis, Deforestation, and Development in Latin America “
Subjunctive Aesthetics is an original, innovative, and sweeping study of the narrative strategies deployed in Mexican cultural production of the 21st century in response to the climate crisis. It proposes that the subjunctive mood operates as an artistic expression to contest the definitiveness of foreclosure. In a moment of great despair towards a grim future,
Subjunctive Aesthetics opens the possibilities to disrupt such closeness by mobilizing desire, emotion, and the imagination. Through innovative theories that illuminate and deepen our understanding of the climate crisis, Fornoff’s marvelous work allows us to reconsider our place in Earth while it reassures that the seed for transformations nests in potentiality.”—Gisela Heffes, author of
Visualizing Loss in Latin America: Biopolitics, Waste, and the Urban Environment"This is a fantastic and timely project. The impressive depth of Fornoff’s contextual research is well matched by the nuance in her analyses."—Brian Gollnick, author of
Reinventing the LacandÓn: Subaltern Representations in the Rain Forest of ChiapasTable of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Environmental Rewriting
- 2. Land Defense and Counterfactual Mourning
- 3. Extinction Poetics
- 4. The Rural Resilience Film
- 5. Greening Mexican Cinema
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
