Science, animal and ghost in Roque Larraquy’s La comemadre and Informe sobre ectoplasma animal

Abstract

In his two novels, La comemadre (2010) and Informe sobre ectoplasma animal (2014), Roque Larraquy works in the limits of the scientific-positivist discourse that begins to take shape in early 20th century Argentina. In both books, science operates as a synecdoche of modernity, and presents itself as a complex assembly in which pseudosciences and experiments with human and non-human animal bodies intersect. In La comemadre, nonhuman animals appear as bodies available for experimentation, which are gradually replaced by human bodies, thus sharing their availability for scientific research. The ghostly character of animals is explored intensely in Informe sobre ectoplasma animal. There the animal as a resource literally becomes a spectrum, which constantly reappears, threatening and interrupting the present.