- Title Information
- Title
- After the Earthquake: Literary Responses to Catastrophe in Mexico City, 1985-2000
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Garner-Prazeres, Julia Hilary
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- creator
- Origin Information
- Copyright Date
- 2012
- Physical Description
- Extent
- vii, 212 p.
- digitalOrigin
- born digital
- Note
- Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2012)
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Ortega, Julio
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Director
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Mazzucchelli, Aldo
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Pastor, Beatriz
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Corporate
- Name Part
- Brown University. Hispanic Studies
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- sponsor
- Genre (aat)
- theses
- Subject
- Topic
- Mexico City
- Subject
- Topic
- catastrophe
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/900899")
- Topic
- Earthquakes
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/894782")
- Topic
- Disasters
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1108566")
- Topic
- Science fiction
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1206137")
- Geographic
- Mexico--Mexico City
- Record Information
- Record Content Source (marcorg)
- RPB
- Record Creation Date
(encoding="iso8601")
- 20121023
- Language
- Language Term:
Code (ISO639-2B)
- eng
- Language Term:
Text
- English
- Abstract
- The dissertation examines the representations of catastrophe that emerge in Mexico City following the devastating 1985 earthquake and the upheaval of the nineties. The study focuses on novels published between 1987 and 1997: Cristóbal Nonato by Carlos Fuentes; Casas de encantamiento by Ignacio Solares; La leyenda de los soles and ¿En quién piensas cuando haces el amor? by Homero Aridjis; and Cielos de la Tierra by Carmen Boullosa. <br/>
The dissertation explores how the fantastical conjoining of distinct temporalities and the fragmented narrative structures in these novels of catastrophe permit a critical perspective on Mexico’s path towards development. I argue that these writers make use of science fiction techniques to deconstruct temporality and to prompt the reader to contemplate whether Mexico’s trajectory could have been otherwise. These novels of catastrophe fit within the conceptual framework of contemporary speculative fiction; and two theorists of the science fiction genre, Jean Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson, have provided support for my line of analysis. In contrast to the testimonial and journalistic accounts of the earthquake, centered on a realistic portrayal of the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the novels by Fuentes, Solares, Aridjis and Boullosa present an exaggerated version of the possible, interweaving a more distant “before” and “after” of the catastrophe. Science fiction time in these novels creates free-flowing connections between historical moments and includes a longer, more associative causal chain of events through devices such as time travel, dystopian futurescapes, the existence alternative realities that unfold from a single moment in time, and the displacement of historical or mythical elements. <br/>
I contend that the novels give a comprehensive depiction of the complexity of the disaster because they are close to the free associations that form the popular imaginary of Mexico City as the site of catastrophe. They draw on Mexico’s unique template for narrating disaster through myth and the story of the Conquest. The writers reveal their political engagement by suggesting that ultimately the present is the only time and space in which fulfillment can happen and in which the potential for social change exists.<br/>
- Identifier:
DOI
- 10.7301/Z05Q4TDP
- Access Condition:
rights statement
(href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
- In Copyright
- Access Condition:
restriction on access
- Collection is open for research.
- Type of Resource (primo)
- dissertations