Tropical Time Machines

How writers and artists use sciencefiction to speak to the current moment in the CaribbeanExploringthe remarkable recent increase in works of science fiction originating in Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean and their diasporas, Tropical Time Machines shows how writers,filmmakers, musicians, and artists are using the language of the genre tocomment on the regions history and present-day realities.Discussinghow previous Caribbean literature and film has characterized places includingCuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic as out of sync with Westerntime, occupying a repeating or static space, Emily Maguire argues that sciencefiction breaks these cycles and resituates the region temporally and spatially.In chapters on cyberpunk, zombies, post-apocalyptic narratives, and the ab-real,Maguire shows how recent cultural production analyzes and critiques the waysglobalization and national leadership have reinforced the regionsmarginalization amid economic and climate crises.Artthat employs the science fictional mode makes room for a new vision of theCaribbean, Maguire demonstratesan alternate perspective in which the regionhas agency in shaping its own narratives and trajectories. The texts themselvesare time machines, enabling creators to protest inequalities of the presentfrom the point of view of an imagined, transformed future.Avolume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/oAmerica, edited by Hctor Fernndez LHoeste and Juan Carlos RodrguezPublicationof this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the AmericanRescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.