<i>"Planetary Longings</i> offers, among other things, a firsthand intellectual history of the past three decades, examining the consequences for thinkers and activists of a newly totalizing capitalism bent on despoiling the earth."
- Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Critical Inquiry
"Mary Louise Pratt is a profound and important thinker and a superb essayist. . . ."
- Ryne Clos, Spectrum Culture
"<i>Planetary Longings</i> is Mary Louise Pratt in her prime. A profound historical thinker, global intellectual, and reader rooted in Latin American studies, Pratt invites us in this book to witness the tumultuous and changing history of Latin America—and with it, crucially, the discipline of Latin American cultural studies—over the past forty years. . . . In this book, the complex intersections between literary criticism, cultural studies, postcolonialism, and sociolinguistics are brought within our reach in readable and vigorous prose, in which a sharp sense of humor is combined with a vibrant and optimistic invitation to read, think, and listen to the forces that move the world."
- Felipe Martínez-Pinzón, A Contracorriente
"Pratt effectively demonstrates a way of reimagining scholarship in relation to Latin America while also providing an interesting reading experience. This collection will be particularly useful to teachers of global studies and to postcolonial scholars looking to expand their knowledge of anti-colonial and decolonial thought."
- Jessi Rae Morton, symploke
“<i>Planetary Longings</i> reminds me again that what was so electrifying was the conceptual dexterity of Pratt’s work—its ability to develop concepts and frameworks that roved across disciplines and compelled scholars of different stripes to consider them in relation to their own work. Pratt’s most recent book exemplifies this in sixteen short, digestible entries.”
- Dante LaRiccia, H-Environment, H-Net Reviews
Introduction. Sitting in the Light of the Great Solar TV 1
Part I. Future Tensions
1.Modernity's False Promises 33
2. Why the Virgin of Zapopan Went to Los Angeles 56
3. Mobility and the Politics of Belonging 75
4. Fire, Water, and Wandering Women 90
5. Planetarized Indigeneity 107
6. Anthropocene as Concept and Chronotope 117
7. Mutations of the Contact Zone: Human to More-Than-Human 125
8. Is This Gitmo or Club Med? 137
9. Authoritarianism 2020: Lessons from Chile 144
Part II. Coloniality, Indigeneity, and the Traffic in Meaning
10. The Ethnographer's Arrival 165
11. Rigoberta Menchú and the Geopolitics of Truth 189
12. The Politics of Reenactment 207
13. Translation, Contagion, Infiltration 220
14. Thinking across the Colonial Divide 234
15. The Futurology of Independence 251
16. Remembering Anticolonialism 265
Coda: Airways, the Politics of Breath 276
Notes 281
References 299
Index 323
Publication History 339