Cano, Luis C.
Luis C. Cano
Luis C. Cano is a Professor of Spanish and Head of the Department of World Languages & Cultures at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Cano received his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University in 1999. He specializes in contemporary Latin American Literatures, with an emphasis on popular genres such as science fiction, detective fiction and the fantastic. His latest book Los espÃritus de la ciencia ficción [The Spirits of Science Fiction] examines the development of Latin American science fiction form the mid-19th century until the early days of Modernismo via an in-depth discussion of the first three science fiction novels published in Spanish America: Viaje maravilloso del señor Nic-Nac al planeta Marte [The Marvelous Journey of Mr. Nic-Nac] by Argentinian writer Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg, Desde Júpiter [From Jupiter] by the Chilean Francisco Miralles, and Querens by Pedro Castera from Mexico. These three novels incorporate all the attributes that consistently appear in a science fiction work through a blend of Darwinism and Spiritism, the two most dominant and widely-debated scientific discourses of their time. Consistent with the social and political interests in the then recently independent Latin American nations, the three writers address scientific, aesthetic, intellectual and personal beliefs through a combination of utopian optimism and dystopian pragmatism.
