Technified Muses: Reconfiguring National Bodies in the Mexican Avant-Garde

Examining representations of the femalebody in postrevolutionary genre literature Inthis volume, Sara Potter uses the idea of the muse from Greek mythology and thecyborg from posthuman theory to consider the portrayal of female characters andtheir bodies in Mexican art and literature from the 1920s to the present. Examininggenres including science fiction, cyberpunk, and popular fiction, Potter findsthat “technified muse” figures often appear in these texts at moments ofviolence and sociopolitical transformation. Potterbegins by looking at two avant-garde movements that emerged in the aftermath ofthe Mexican Revolution: the Estridentistas and the Contemporáneos. Moving to the“Mexican Miracle,” a midcentury period of economic prosperity, she considers thework of surrealists Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo within their culturaland political climates. She then addresses the aftermath of the 1968 studentmassacre in Tlatelolco as explored in Fernando del Paso’s Palinuro de México and Juan García Ponce’s Crónica de la intervención. Finally, Potter engages with the era thatbegan with the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and Zapatistarebellion, drawing from Bernardo Fernández’s Gel azul, Guadalupe Nettel’s Elhuésped, and Karen Chacek’s La caídade los pájaros.Technified Muses shows that duringthese key periods, writers created muse-like characters that interact with the technologicaldiscourses of their times. These figures reflect the increasing emphasis onscience and progress throughout the twentieth century, embodying themodernization of Mexico while offering parallel narratives that challenge officialportrayals of the nation’s history. Publicationof this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the AmericanRescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Read more