The “Problematics of Culture and Theory” Seminar, held by the School of English at Aristotle University, will be hosting an online talk by Dr Gorica Majstorovic (Professor of Spanish and World Literature at Stockton University, USA) on Thursday May 18,th at 15.00-16.30.
The title of the online talk is:
“Petromodernity and the Historical Avant-Garde in the Americas”
The talk will take place via the Zoom platform. All those interested in attending via zoom, please submit the relevant registration form. The zoom link details for the event will be sent by email on the eve of the talk to all those who have registered for online participation.
Problematics Seminar Coordinators:
Dr L.E. Roupakia (roupakia@enl.auth.gr) and Dr Ε. Botonaki (botonaki@enl.auth.gr)
EVENT ABSTRACT
In the wake of the Mexican and Russian revolutions, the two decades between the world wars is the historical period when the first challenge to the imperial system appeared on a global level. It is in this context that the present talk argues for peripheral aesthetics committed to emerging environmentalism. By focusing on the rise of petromodernity in the Americas, it discusses the novel Oil by Upton Sinclair (set in California, 1927), and the Mexican avant-garde petronovel by Xavier Icaza (set in the Gulf of Mexico, 1928). Diego Rivera depicted oil fields in Riches of California mural at the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco (1931), a visual backdrop for the emerging energy humanities category of petrofiction.
GUEST SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Gorica Majstorovic is Professor of Spanish and World Literature at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ (USA). Her research concerns the intersection of Latin American Studies and American Studies, with particular emphasis on the interwar period. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Atlantic Studies, Transmodernity, Symposium, Latin American Research Review, and Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, as well as The Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel and other volumes. She is the author of Global South Modernities: Modernist Literature and the Avant-Garde in Latin America (Lexington Books, 2020) and co-editor of Cultural and Literary Dialogues Between Asia and Latin America (Palgrave, 2021).
