Jorge Quintana Navarrete
Associate Professor
Appointments
Associate Professor of Spanish
Area of Expertise
Mexican Literature and Culture,
Cultural Production of the Mexican Revolution,
Utopian Studies,
Environmental Humanities,
Posthuman Studies
Biography
Jorge Quintana Navarrete is Associate Professor of Spanish at Dartmouth College. His research interests include Mexican culture (19th and 20th centuries), Utopian Studies, Environmental Humanities, and Science and Technolgy Studies. He has published peer-reviewed articles in Hispanic Review, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Revista Hispánica Moderna, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, among others.
His book, Biocosmism. Vitality and the Utopian Imagination in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Vanderbilt University Press, 2024) traces the intellectual constellation of biocosmism or biocosmic thought in Mexico: 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's La raza cósmica to examine how biocosmism produced a wide array of utopian projects and theorizations that continue to challenge anthropocentric, biopolitical frameworks.
He was awarded a Mellon New Directions Fellowship (2025-2028) for his research project Geological Mexico: Science, Indigeneity, and the Framing of the Earth, which examines the interrelationship between geological science, political formations, and racialization in nineteenth-century Mexico.
Education
B.A. Universidad de Sonora
M.A. Universidad de Sonora
Ph. D. Princeton University
Publications
"Hydraulic Energy, Nature, and Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Mexico." Changes in the Landscape. Ed. Jennifer French. Vanderbilt University Press, 2025, 132-152.
"Mining, Racialization, and the Utopia of Desedimentation in Pedro Castera's Geological Writings." Special issue of Bulletin of Latin American Research, edited by Alejandro Ponce de León and Salomé Lopez Coelho, 2024, 1-11.
"Utopía y experimentación científica en el zoológico de Chapultepec." Reinvención de la metrópoli 1920-1940. Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 2024, 72-79.
"Geology." Handbook of Latin American Environmental Aesthetics. Eds. Jens Andermann, Gabriel Giorgi, Victoria Saramago. De Gruyter Press, 2023.
"La utopía cardenista: la construcción del pueblo durante el gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas". 452ºF. Revista de teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada. 28 (2023): 78–90.
"Sinofobia y mestizaje eugenésico en la prensa de Sonora." Las culturas de la prensa en México (1880-1940). Eds. Yanna Hadatty Mora and Viviane Mahieux. UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, 2022, 463-490.
"El hispanismo de William H. Prescott y la mitohistoria de la conqiusta de México." George Ticknor y la fundación del hispanismo en Estados Unidos. Ed. José M. del Pino. Editorial Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2022, 305-326.
"Reading Race in Rocks: Political Geology in Nineteenth-Century Mexico." Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. 30.4 (2021): 525-543.
"José Vasconcelos's Plant Theory: the Life of Plants, Botanical Ethics, and the Cosmic Race." Hispanic Review. 89. 1 (2021): 69-92.
"La utopía a prueba: formas heterogéneas de vida en 'Eugenia' de Eduardo Urzaiz". Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. 44.2 (2020): 463-484.
"Biopolítica y vida inorgánica: la plasmogenia de Alfonso Herrera". Revista Hispánica Moderna. Vol. 72. Num. 1 (2019): 79-95. *Honorary mention for best article in the humanities at LASA's Mexico section.
"El puente del horror: imagen dialéctica y soberanía en 'La casa del dolor ajeno' de Julián Herbert". A contracorriente. Vol. 16, Num. 3 (Spring 2019): 317-331.
"El sueño de Salvador Alvarado: socialismo utópico y subalternidad en el Yucatán revolucionario". Chasqui. Vol. 48. Num. 1 (2019): 166-179.
"¿De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de derechos humanos?". Horizontal. July 2016
"Misión cumplida. Breve genealogía del performance de soberanía del Estado mexicano". Horizontal. July 2016
"La utopía está en otra parte: Albert K. Owen y la colonización de Topolobampo". Horizontal. October 2015
"La experiencia de la modernidad en 'La señorita Etc' de Arqueles Vela y 'El joven' de Salvador Novo". Líneas de fuga. 2014: 34.
"Estridentópolis en cuatro movimientos". Unidiversidad. 2014: 14.
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