Modernism, spiritualism, and science in Argentina at the turn of the twentieth century: An Analysis of national magazines

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the uses and appropriations of scientific discourse in Argentine magazines from the fin de siècle`a period in which literary modernism coincided with the development of spiritualisms that aspired to the status of science (or "occult sciences") like Spiritism and Theosophy. I explore La Quincena. Revista de letras (1893-1899), a publication that gathered the work of modernist writers together with other pieces covering juridical, scientific, philosophical, and spiritualist themes. The chapter also considers Philadelphia (1898-1902) and La Verdad (1905-1911), the country`s first theosophical magazines, which contained pieces by Leopoldo Lugones, José Ingenieros, and Alfredo Palacios, among others; and selections from Constancia that date between 1890 and 1905 in which the work of Emilio Becher is particularly salient. While these magazines appear distant from "scientific culture" (Terán, 2010), we find not only a range of articles, news items, and essays linked to a wide spectrum of scientific enterprises in this period, but also different uses of, and engagements with, science`s discourses, ideas, and forms of knowledge. My aim is to analyze concrete examples that relativize the sharp division between science, art, and spiritualism in the culture of this period. In addition, I will focus on how the astonishing growth of science in Argentina, as well as the social legitimation of scientific discourses, influenced other fields, giving shape to new literary expressions, beliefs, and utopian projections that synthesized the material and the spiritual.