Micah McKay In an essay entitled “Nunca fue tan hermosa la basura,” Spanish philosopher José Luis Pardo makes a simple modification to the famous opening line of Karl Marx’s Capital—“The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities’” (41)—in a way that underlines …
Jorge Santander Existe en los estudios medievales una tendencia orientada hacia el estudio de los objetos y de las cosas (thing theory) y la materialidad. Dichos estudios consideran que los objetos y las cosas no son exclusivamente símbolos o significantes, sino que tienen la capacidad de actuar por sí mismos. Sostienen que los objetos pueden …
Eva Schlitz What do virtual reality and traditional shaman healing ceremonies have in common? At first glance, the connections are hard to see. My biomedical background had already sparked an interest in the developing field of virtual reality healthcare. That sensory exercises could be used to overload the nervous system and diminish chronic pain signals …
Azucena Castro & Gianfranco Selgas Rizoma: Latin American Laboratory of Art, Ecology, and Science is an emerging environmental humanities web-based platform for dialogue, discussion, and exchange of ideas on issues concerning the relationships between art, ecology, and science in the Latin American context. Rizoma aims to nurture a radical and critical space to speculate and …
Jill Pflugheber & Steven F. White We hope that the Microcosms website, entirely available in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, can be a valuable resource for Latin American Studies programs in that it cuts across traditional disciplines in innovative ways and encourages dialogue between the humanities and the sciences in general, including Anthropology, Art History, …
Alberto M. Vargas Many top research universities in the US and elsewhere are becoming leaders in cutting-edge research on psychedelics. The University of Wisconsin–Madison recently launched the Transdisciplinary Center for Research in Psychoactive Substances (TCRPS), aiming to coordinate ongoing research and education in psychedelic compounds, and to promote outreach in this rapidly expanding field. This …