Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustration
- Introduction
- A Tree Grows in Bajan Brooklyn: Writing Caribbean New York
- Reading the Novum World: The Literary Geography of Science Fiction in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- Inventing Tropicality: Writing Fever, Writing Trauma in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes
- Imperial Archaeology: The American Isthmus as Contested Scientific Contact Zone
- Space Age Tropics
- Black Jacobins and New World Mediterraneans
- The Oloffson
- Dark Thresholds in Trinidad: Regarding the Colonial House
- Micronations of the Caribbean
- Golden Kings, Cocaine Lords, and the Madness of El Dorado: Guayana as Native and Colonial Imaginary
- Suriname Literary Geography: The Changing Same
- The Art of Observation: Race and Landscape in A Journey in Brazil
- Notes on Contributors and Editors
- Index
Space Age Tropics
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustration
- Introduction
- A Tree Grows in Bajan Brooklyn: Writing Caribbean New York
- Reading the Novum World: The Literary Geography of Science Fiction in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- Inventing Tropicality: Writing Fever, Writing Trauma in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes
- Imperial Archaeology: The American Isthmus as Contested Scientific Contact Zone
- Space Age Tropics
- Black Jacobins and New World Mediterraneans
- The Oloffson
- Dark Thresholds in Trinidad: Regarding the Colonial House
- Micronations of the Caribbean
- Golden Kings, Cocaine Lords, and the Madness of El Dorado: Guayana as Native and Colonial Imaginary
- Suriname Literary Geography: The Changing Same
- The Art of Observation: Race and Landscape in A Journey in Brazil
- Notes on Contributors and Editors
- Index
Summary
Bulldozers uproot ancient rainforest and the sacred mountains of indigenous tribal peoples, explosives blast away the outer crust of earth and giant trucks move in, digging their claws deep into the exposed bauxite ore. A reddish dust fills the air, eventually settling on every leaf, roof and lung for miles around. The bauxite ore is washed, strained, baked and dried into a fine powdery dust. Poured into the deep holds of ships, the alumina crosses the world in search of cheap electricity, drawn to the raging rivers and geological forces that have been tamed to feed the smelters. Into the mile-long lines of smelter pots it pours, where a jolt of electric current awakens the secretive metal from its oxide slumber. Electrons jump to order, molten shining metal forms like lava around the cathode of a carbon crucible. The alchemical forces of the universe are unleashed, setting in motion an alluvial flow of aluminium. Out of the pots, presses and rollers, a tidal wave of castings, forgings and sheets of metal enter the factories of the world to be turned into finished goods like car parts and airplane fuselages, cans and wrappers, kitchenware and foil, chairs and satellites.
All of the airplanes, computers, satellites and communication systems that keep our world moving owe their existence to aluminium. Many technologies associated with mobility not only depend on this light metal, but also depend more deeply on the idea of mobility that aluminium enabled. We get so used to the powers and possibilities of aluminium that we take it for granted and begin to forget it is there. A multitude of metal products travels around the world, passing through our hands, lifted to our lips, lifting us off our feet—lightweight cans, food packaging, trains and planes, and the orbiting satellites that connect our phone calls. Light, fleet, it makes us feel like we can fly. Aluminium creates the invisible metallic infrastructure of modernity that puts people and things in motion.
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- Information
- Surveying the American TropicsA Literary Geography from New York to Rio, pp. 131 - 158Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2013