Science in Argentine Literature

doi:10.1017/9781009283069.015

Chapter 14 - Science in Argentine Literature

from Part II - Critical Inroads

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2024

Joanna Page

Edited by

Alejandra Laera and

Mónica Szurmuk

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Alejandra Laera: Affiliation:
University of Buenos Aires
Mónica Szurmuk: Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de San Martín /National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina

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Summary

This chapter will address contrasting ways in which Argentine literature has reflected on, and borrowed from, scientific theories and practices. Many nineteenth-century writers (such as José Mármol, Eugenio Cambaceres, and Lucio V. Mansilla) drew on (pseudo-)scientific discourses to lend legitimacy to their arguments, while others developed a critical approach to the legacies of positivism in Argentina. Dystopian visions of the imbrication of science, technology, and the politics of authoritarianism dominate the twentieth century, in texts that explore the experience of mass society or dictatorship. However, this chapter will also highlight cases of much greater ambivalence, such as that of Roberto Arlt, in whose work the pursuit of science and technology becomes both an instrument of violence and a fount of beauty and liberation. Furthermore, it will construct an important genealogy of authors – from Eduardo Holmberg in the final decades of the nineteenth century through to the contemporary writer Marcelo Cohen – who have conducted innovative metafictional explorations into the relationship between literature and science, and who have understood the porous boundary between them to be a source of great creativity.

Keywords

Positivism liberalism Darwin biopolitics capitalism

Type: Chapter
Information: A History of Argentine Literature , pp. 216 - 231

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009283069.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024

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