Contesting the Climate Unthinkable

Examining Latin American cultural works that rethink environmental change and natural catastrophes



This volume explores Latin American cultural works from the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries that reflect environmental changes brought on by
colonization, capitalism, and resource exploitation. Contributors
examine films, novels, photographs, and videos from the Caribbean, the
Southern Cone, the Andes, and the Amazon, showcasing how artists,
writers, and activists depict the scale and impact of ecological crises.



Drawing from environmental humanities, decolonial
thought, and Indigenous scholarship, this book examines how
relationships with the nonhuman reshape human understandings of
ecological collapse and resilience. Contributors discuss movies on toxic waste in Chile and Bolivia, gothic elements in horror, art and mineral
extraction in Venezuela, dystopian novels set in the Río de la Plata,
Mapuche poetry and dance in protest of terricidio, and utopias
in Brazilian Afrofuturistic novels. They show how speculative fiction,
testimonial narratives, experimental films, and site-specific
installations address environmental disasters, climate breakdown, and
extractivism, revealing the colonial histories and economic structures
that underpin climate change.



The chapters in this book
examine artistic forms that amplify the voices of affected communities
and envision more ethical futures rooted in regional cultures,
geographies, and practices. Highlighting the significance of
perspectives from the Global South, this volume broadens understandings
of environmental justice and ways of rethinking planetary survival.



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



Contributors: Paul Merchant Igor Barreto Ken Benson Victoria Saramago José Carlos
Díaz Zanelli Andrés Obando Jasmin Belmar Shagulian Patrick Brock Gianfranco Selgas Sebastian Wiedemann Roberto Roabilnho Azucena
Castro Emily Baker Montserrat Madariaga-Caro Allison Mackey

Author Biography

Azucena Castro, assistant professor of Latin American cultural studies at Rice University, is the author of Posnaturalezas poéticas: Pensamiento ecológico y políticas de la extrañeza en la poesía latinoamericana contemporánea. Gianfranco Selgas, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London, is the author of Regionalismo ensamblado: Cultura, ecología política y extractivismos en Latinoamérica (1930-1940). Ken Benson, emeritus professor of Spanish at Stockholm University, is the author of La subversión silente. Carmen Laforet: poética y hermenéutica.