Indigenous and Western Sciences in Carlos Hernandez's The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria

Authors

Joy Sanchez-Taylor, CUNY La Guardia Community CollegeFollow

Document Type

Book Chapter or Section

Publication Date

2023

Abstract

This chapter examines Carlos Hernandez’s The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria as an example of how authors of alternative futurisms can draw on Indigenous knowledge to destabilize Eurowestern perceptions that Western science is more modern and rational than Indigenous knowledge. Joy Sanchez-Taylor argues that Hernandez combines references to Santería and quantum physics to demonstrate parallels between Indigenous knowledge and Eurowestern “rational” science. Ultimately, references in Quantum Santeria to ideas of spiritual healing and nonlinear time demonstrate how authors like Hernandez are working to restore Biskaabiiyang, or a return to self, within science fiction.

Comments

This chapter was originally published in The Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms, edited by Taryne Jade Taylor, Isiah Lavender III, Grace L. Dillon, and Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429317828

This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).