La magia della scienza. La parte latinoamericana in MANIAC di Benjamín Labatut
The Magic of Science. The Latinamerican parti in MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut
Parole chiave:
Benjamín Labatut, postcolonialismo, scienza e magia, realismo magico, modernità occidentale, Postcolonialism, Science and Magic, Magical Realism, Western ModernityAbstract
The article examines Benjamín Labatut’s MANIAC (2023) from an ethical-aesthetic and postcolonial standpoint, challenging the master narrative of Western science and its alleged universality. Through a counterintuitive reading, the author argues that Labatut’s work—despite its belonging to the global novel paradigm—reveals a latent Latin American dimension: “magic” as a critical lens capable of undermining the hegemony of scientific rationality. By engaging MANIAC with both the tradition of magical realism and science and technology studies, the essay shows how Labatut’s scientists take on shamanic and mythic features, becoming symbols of modernity’s Promethean delirium. In this light, the “magic of science” functions as a metaphor for the return of the colonial unconscious within Western thought.
