Doom Patterns

Maia Gil’Adí takes up Latinx and Latinx-adjacent speculative fiction as a site for theorizing Latinx identity across national and ethnic borders as it is informed by historical trauma. In so doing, she allows for a more capacious consideration of the speculative, realism, history, and the role of violence in literature.

“Maia Gil’AdÍ approaches Latinx speculative fiction as a paradigm to read through Latinx studies, posing sharp questions that warrant serious consideration. By putting works that normally would not be placed in conversation with each other, such as Colson Whitehead’s Zone One and Cristina GarcÍa’s Dreaming in Cuban , Gil’AdÍ not only sheds new light on these works; she generates a new conversation altogether. Her innovative interventions make Doom Patterns a bold, generative, and liberating move for Latinx studies.” - Catherine S. Ramírez, author of (Assimilation: An Alternative History) “Maia Gil’AdÍ troubles the bounds of Latinx literature. Across sumptuous readings of speculative fiction, she reveals ‘doom patterns’ of recurrent violence not only in literature but as the cohering logic of a hemispheric latinidad. In so doing, she problematizes concepts and practices of canonicity, reframes theorizations of the borderlands, and challenges conventions for taxonomies of Latinx literature. Doom Patterns is essential reading for scholars of Latinx literature, multiethnic literature, English, and Latinx studies and American studies more broadly.” - Leticia Alvarado, author of (Abject Performances: Aesthetic Strategies in Latino Cultural Production)

Maia Gil’AdÍ is Fannie Gaston-Johansson Assistant Professor of Latinx Studies at Johns Hopkins University.