Geopolitics, Culture, and the Scientific Imaginary in Latin America - Paperback

by María del Pilar Blanco (Editor), Joanna Page (Editor)

Highlighting the relationship among science, politics, and culture in Latin American history

Challenging the common view that Latin America has lagged behind Europe and North America in the global history of science, this volume reveals that the region has long been a center for scientific innovation and imagination. It highlights the important relationship among science, politics, and culture in Latin American history.

Scholars from a variety of fields including literature, sociology, and geography bring to light many of the cultural exchanges that have produced and spread scientific knowledge from the early colonial period to the present day. Among many topics, these essays describe ideas on health and anatomy in a medical text from sixteenth-century Mexico, how fossil discoveries in Patagonia inspired new interpretations of the South American landscape, and how Argentinian physicist Rolando García influenced climate change research and the field of epistemology.

Through its interdisciplinary approach, Geopolitics, Culture, and the Scientific Imaginary in Latin America shows that such scientific advancements fueled a series of visionary utopian projects throughout the region, as countries grappling with the legacy of colonialism sought to modernize and to build national and regional identities.

Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Author Biography

María del Pilar Blanco is associate professor of Spanish American literature and fellow and tutor in Spanish at Trinity College, University of Oxford. She is the author of Ghost-Watching American Modernity: Haunting, Landscape, and the Hemispheric Imagination. Joanna Page is professor of Latin American studies at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of several books, including Decolonizing Science in Latin American Art.

Contributors: Jens Andermann María del Pilar Blanco Edward Chauca Hernán Comastri Miguel de Asúa Lina del Castillo Carlos Fonseca Gabriela Nouzeilles Brais Outes-León Joanna Page Yarí Pérez Marín Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra Julio Prieto Soledad Quereilhac Heidi V. Scott