It has become something of a critical commonplace to claim that
science fiction does not actually exist in Argentina. This book
puts that claim to rest by identifying and analyzing a rich body of
work that fits squarely in the genre. Joanna Page explores a range
of texts stretching from 1875 to the present day and across a
variety of media-literature, cinema, theatre, and comics-and
studies the particular inflection many common discourses of science
fiction (e.g., abuse of technology by authoritarian regimes,
apocalyptic visions of environmental catastrophe) receive in the
Argentine context. A central aim is to historicize these texts,
showing how they register and rework the contexts of their
production, particularly the hallmarks of modernity as a social and
cultural force in Argentina. Another aim, held in tension with the
first, is to respond to an important critique of historicism that
unfolds in these texts. They frequently unpick the chronology of
modernity, challenging the linear, universalizing models of
development that underpin historicist accounts. They therefore
demand a more nuanced set of readings that work to supplement,
revise, and enrich the historicist perspective.
