Neoliberal Ethos and Affective Counteroffensive in Central American Fiction and Film

Neoliberal Ethos and Affective Counteroffensive in Central American Fiction and Film: Archives of Malaise examines the emergence of negative affect in Central American fiction and film over the past two decades as an aesthetic response to neoliberalism. Rather than treating neoliberalism solely as a political and economic doctrine, the book considers it as a form of rationality that promotes optimism, happiness, and entrepreneurial self-fashioning. Against these imperatives, contemporary Central American cultural works articulate experiences of anxiety, disenchantment, fear, frustration, melancholy, and despair amid growing precarity and uncertainty.

Through readings of literature and film, the book argues that these negative affects are not simply representations of individual or collective distress. They register a deeper malaise produced by the contradictions of neoliberal life and constitute an ethical and political response to its demands for optimism and enthusiasm. By placing literary and cinematic representations in dialogue, author Magdalena Perkowska offers a new account of how contemporary Central American cultural production makes visible and contests the emotional dimensions of neoliberalism.