Note: Although this is a two-part series, each module stands on its own. Students are welcome to join in for any module of the series. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Surely life at the world's end will unhinge your imagination! See by yourself by exploring the extraordinary, diverse science fiction and fantasy (SFF) of Chile, a remote land barely hanging at the edge of our planet. Boasting a grand literary tradition, and literally zero interest in hard science, Chilean SFF is different, opening unusual vistas into the imaginative landscape.

In the first part of this two-module series, we will first explore the rich Chilean Gothic, where, amidst sublime, disquieting and disjointed physical and cultural landscapes, Poe and Lovecraft continue exerting much influence. Famous works, like The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal, coexist with many unknown jewels. Given Chile’s extreme and vast geography, and persistent ‘frontier culture’, fantastic ‘lost cities’ and ‘lost worlds’ adventures have abounded here. We will look at local classics of this fun, gripping subgenre.

After losing ourselves on remote places in search of treasure and immortality, we will explore the incisive ‘New Wave’ feminist SFF of the Chilean sixties—in particular Elena Aldunate and Ilda Cádiz Ávila, two remarkable authors whose influence grows every year as female voices are rediscovered and empowered. Perhaps a cautionary tale, Chilean proud 150-year-old democracy burned and crashed on 9/11/1973.

Chile has also produced remarkable SFF comics, creatively expressing (or repressing) changing local moods. We will explore exciting works, little known in the US, including the adventures of Mampato and the extraordinary Guardians of the South, a decolonizing comics depicting indigenous Mapuche as superheroes, precisely at a time of their political uprising.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as follows:

• Lecture 1: Poe & Lovecraft in the South Pacific: At the real mountains of madness' and other awesomely disquieting Gothic stuff.
• Discussion 1: Class discussion on Lecture 1 material.


• Lecture 2: Lost Worlds and Fantastic Cities Aplenty: Why not just grab some horses and go in search of eternal life and gold by the bucketfuls in the foreboding Andes and the forbidding Patagonian fiords?
• Discussion 2: Class discussion on Lecture 2 material.


• Lecture 3: Forget Neruda! The amazing feminist 'New Wave' sixties science fiction of Isabel Aldunate & Ilda Cádiz Ávila.
• Discussion 3: Class discussion on Lecture 3 material.


• Lecture 4: Top comics in the Andes: From time-traveling Mampato and Jodorowsky’s Incal to the decolonizing, native Mapuche superheroes, The Guardians of the South.
• Discussion 4: Class discussion on Lecture 4 material.