Research

Alexandra’s research focuses on 20th and 21st century Latin American literature with a concentration in the Caribbean and Southern Cone. Her dissertation research articulated a theory of Latin American irrealism that argues that changes in economic development incite shifts in utopian aspiration which, in turn, are registered in the literary form of irrealist genres. Her book project, Dependent Futures: Latin America and the Utopian Machine, is developed from this research and incorporates new material aimed at understanding the role of the Caribbean in the development of Latin American science fiction. In it, she examines a collection of novels from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Chile, arguing that before the 1960s, the Southern Cone provides a regionwide model of science fiction, until the Cuban Revolution introduces a process of utopian fracture that shifts the genre’s structure into a form popularized in the Caribbean. This research uncovers previously unrecognized connections between the two regions while, at the same time, arguing for a renewed understanding of how irrealist genres develop in Latin America.