Luis Mora-Ballesteros, Ph.D., author of Ciudades y mundos posibles: Distopías y estados de control en la novela hispanoamericana contemporánea (De Gruyter, 2025) will discuss his recent work on the post-pandemic Hispanic-American novel. Join us for a presentation followed by an open Q&A.
Abstract: Dr. Mora-Ballesteros presentation will consist of a critical examination of post-pandemic Hispanic-American novels that highlight a growing trend to view the present and depict the future in a harmful and destructive light. This lecture explores fiction that combines transgressive, violent, prospective, and sociopolitical aesthetics. The analysis of the corpus enables the identification and interpretation of corona fiction, virus fiction (vi-fi), and demodystopian fiction, thereby developing new approaches and concepts to explore contemporary social challenges through post-COVID-19 fiction.
Bio: Luis Mora-Ballesteros is a scholar in Hispanic American Literature who has developed his career as a lecturer alongside his work as a literary critic, promoter, and fiction writer. His field of research is dystopian fiction and urban representations in 21st-century Hispanic American literature. He is the author of the books Cities and Possible Worlds. Dystopia and Control States in the Contemporary Latin American novel (2025), and Critical Practices: Notes on Urban Literatures of the Hispanic Caribbean (2022). His creative work includes the novels: Díptico de la frontera (2020), La sombra del comandante (2022), and Border Diptych (2024). He serves as an Assistant Professor at the US Naval Academy, has been the Program Director at Rutgers, and has taught at Monmouth University and CUNY., among other colleges.
This event is sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor on behalf of the working group LLC46: Decolonial and Critical Thought in Latin America and the Caribbean
END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR