Biocosmism: Vitality and the Utopian Imagination in Postrevolutionary Mexico [Hardcover]

Honorable Mention, Premio al Mejor Libro en Humanidades, Latin American Studies Association–Mexico Section, 2025

Most scholars study postrevolutionary Mexico as a period in which cultural production significantly shaped national identity through murals, novels, essays, and other artifacts that registered the changing political and social realities in the wake of the Revolution. InBiocosmism, Jorge Quintana Navarrete shifts the focus to examine how a group of scientists, artists, and philosophers conceived the manifold relations of the human species with cosmological forces and nonhuman entities (animals, plants, inorganic matter, and celestial bodies, among others).

Drawing from recent theoretical trends in new materialisms, biopolitics, and posthumanism, this book traces for the first time the intellectual constellation of biocosmism or biocosmic thought: the study of universal life understood as the vital vibrancy that animates everything in the cosmos from inorganic matter to living organisms to outer space. It combines both analysis of unexplored areas—such as Alfonso L. Herrera’s plasmogeny—and innovative readings of canonical texts like Vasconcelos’sLa raza cósmicato examine how biocosmism produced a wide array of utopian projects and theorizations that continue to challenge anthropocentric, biopolitical frameworks.Mexican intellectual conceptions of cosmology and utopia in the postrevolutionary era"In this fascinating, original, and meticulously researched book, Quintana Navarrete offers compelling insights on the roles of scientific discourse and utopian thinking through his exploration of both familiar and lesser-known works of the Mexican postrevolutionary period. Biocosmism opens new angles of debate and exploration in Mexican studies and in the humanities more broadly."
—Susan Antebi, author of Embodied Archive: Disability lÎ