Science Fusion draws on new materialist theory to analyze the relationship between science and literature in contemporary works of fiction, poetry, and theater from Mexico. In this deft new study, Brian Chandler examines how a range of contemporary Mexican writers “fuse” science and literature in their work to rethink what it means to be human in an age of climate change, mass extinctions, interpersonal violence, femicide, and social injustice. The authors under consideration here—including Alberto Blanco, Jorge Volpi, Ignacio Padilla, Sabina Berman, Maricela Guerrero, and Elisa Díaz Castelo—challenge traditional divisions that separate human from nonhuman, subject from object, culture from nature. Using science and literature to engage topics in biopolitics, historiography, metaphysics, ethics, and ecological crisis in the age of the Anthropocene, works of science fusion offer fresh perspectives to address present-day sociocultural and environmental issues.

Brian T. Chandler is a professor of Spanish at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His work has been published in edited volumes and journals such as Romance Quarterly, Latin American Literary Review, Hispania, and Chasqui.

“This engagingly written and meticulously researched study of science in contemporary Mexican literature answers and asks many questions about history, the more-than-human world, automation, extractionism, and other key issues in Mexico today. Chandler’s study opens new lines of inquiry into the world of some of the most relevant writers in recent Mexican poetry (Alberto Blanco), drama (Sabina Berman), and fiction (the Crack) and introduces us to the work of some younger writers as well.”— Ronald J. Friis, author of White Light: The Poetry of Alberto Blanco (Bucknell University Press)

“In this tightly argued book, Brian Chandler assesses contemporary Mexican literature that draws from, and challenges, scientific theories. Chandler counters the tendency to consider literary engagements with science solely through the lens of science fiction, demonstrating instead how diverse forms of literary ‘science fusion’ problematize the purported human/nonhuman divide.”— Carolyn Fornoff, author of Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Cultural Production in the Era of Climate Change

“Brian Chandler expertly navigates four decades of literary production to show how Mexican authors have reflected on the interconnectedness between science and culture. Chandler’s book reinvigorates literature and science as a field in the Latin American context, and it is a must-read for anyone interested in the entanglements between the sciences and the humanities.”— Oscar A. Pérez, author of Medicine, Power, and the Authoritarian Regime in Hispanic Literature

“Science Fusion, a criticism of the Enlightenment colonial notion that separates science and the humanities, begins with an engaging study of people passing through the science tunnel in the La Raza metro station in Mexico City. As Chandler draws on ecocriticism, science fiction, and the history of science in Mexico, his dynamic work shows that our experience of the world is an interconnected one, made up of matter, and how we interpret it.”— Rebecca Janzen, author of Unlawful Violence: Mexican Law and Cultural Production