Cyborgs, Animals, and Monsters

Catalog description

In this course we will explore how Latin American science fiction and fantastic novels, graphic novels, short stories, and films from the modern and contemporary period have represented the figures of the animal, the monster, and the cyborg. The aim is to reflect on what these representations tell us about the shifting notions of race, gender, and ethnicity in the region, and to analyze how these weird bodies are able to challenge binary constructions such as civilization/barbarism, nature/culture, human/animal, normal/abnormal, and body/mind, while creating spaces for emerging alternative communities. Some of the authors to be read are Mario Bellatin, Samanta Schweblin, Leonora Carrington, and Martin Felipe Castagnet.