The Memory of the National and the National as Memory

This essay seeks to illuminate a different, more encompassing kind of transition than that from dictatorship to post-dictatorship (and its attendant forms of memory of military brutal force and human rights abuses) often privileged by studies of political violence and social memory. The focus is twofold: first, to describe a transition from the world of the social to that of the post-social, i.e. a transition from a welfare state-centered form of the nation to its neoliberal competitive state counterpart; and secondly, to analyze its attendant memory dynamics. The double articulation of collective memory under neoliberalism, the deep and recurring violence it has involved at both the social and the individual level, and its self-articulation as a social memory apparatus are apparent in two Chilean films exploring the logic (Pablo Larraín’s Tony Manero) and the history (Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia de la luz) of the implementation of this neoliberal memory apparatus in Chile. Este trabajo intenta iluminar una transición más amplia que aquella entre dictadura y post-dictadura ( y sus correspondientes formas de memoria sobre la violencia militar o los abusos a los derechos humanos) que suele ser el objeto de estudio de los trabajos sobre violencia política y memoria social. Mi interés es doble: primero, describir una transición del mundo social al post-social (es decir, una transición desde una forma de estado-nación centrada en el estado de bienestar a su contraparte neoliberal y competitiva; y en segundo lugar, analizar sus correspondientes formas de memoria. La doble articulación de la memoria colectiva bajo el neoliberalismo, la profunda y recurrente violencia presente, tanto a nivel social como a nivel individual, y su autoarticulación como un aparato de la memoria social son evidentes en las dos películas chilenas Tony Manero de Pablo Larraín y Nostalgia de la luz de Patricio Guzmán que exploran la lógica y la historia de la implementación de este aparato de la memoria neoliberal en Chile

“Mam” and “Guepy”: Two Valley Zapotec poems

This work consists of two poems written in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, a Valley Zapotec language spoken in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The poems are presented with English and Spanish translations, notes about the poet and translator, explanation of the translation process, and culture information

Testimonio y materialidad: el encuentro con el espacio y el lugar / Testimonio and Materiality. The Encounter With Space and Place

Este trabajo explora la dimensión individual del encuentro con los sitios de memoria en la postdictadura del Cono Sur. Revela la existencia de un deseo testimonial en conexión con los ex centros clandestinos de tortura, detención y exterminio (CCDTyEs) en Argentina y Chile y propone que este deseo produce un encuentro frustrado con el material en el momento en que llega el/la visitante al sitio de memoria. Argumenta que este pacto “no cumplido” con el testimonio que nos da el espacio es una de las experiencias más productivas que el espacio puede producir en el visitante, al poner al visitante en una situación paralela a la que vive el/la sobreviviente de la violencia, una situación en que uno desea dejar testimonio pero se enfrenta con la crisis de la representación de la violencia, donde se lucha por encontrar una forma adecuada para hacer que el otro entienda la magnitud del horror vivido. Palabras Clave: Testimonio, Sitios de Memoria, Post-dictadura, Chile, Argentina, Memoria intergeneracional, Londres 38, Villa Grimaldi.This essay explores the individual dimension of the encounter with sites of memory in the Southern Cone post-dictatorship. It reveals the existence of a testimonial desire in connection with the former clandestine centers of detention, torture, and extermination in Argentina and Chile and proposes that this desire produces a frustrated encounter with the material in the moment in which the visitor arrives to the site of memory. It argues that this “incomplete” nature of the testimonial pact we have with the space is one of the most productive experiences the space could provide to the visitor because it puts the visitor in a situation that runs parallel to that of the survivor of violence who struggles to find an adequate form through which to make the “other” understand the magnitude of the violence of their story. Key Words: Testimonio, Sites of Memory, Post-dictatorship, Chile, Argentina, Intergenerational Memory, Londres 38, Villa Grimaldi.

Latent Image: Chilean Cinema and the Abject.

Central to the analysis of a corpus of films dealing with current psychosocial conditions in Chile and the challenges of communal reconciliation, are the concepts of collective memory and social trauma. Chilean cinema of the postdictatorship reflects a society whose channels of communication have been broken, in which the past continues to be a source of contestation and dispute. The neoliberal system imposed in the early 1970s has significantly contributed to an isolation and disaffection that limit the possibilities of social healing. Cinema has assumed the role of recovering a sense of community by disallowing the privatization of pain fostered by the hegemonic political practices and discourses of the period of dictatorship by returning this suffering to the social arena from which it originated

Poesía chilena del paisaje y la ciudad : cartografía de una tradición poética. Hacia una estética de la poesía postdictatorial

El presente artículo propone un recorrido por la poesía chilena reciente desde los años setenta hasta la poesía de la postdictadura. Los poemas se centran principalmente en el paisaje y en la ciudad como una forma de preservar la memoria tanto individual como colectiva.The present article aims to show a panoramic view of recent Chilean poetry, from the seventies until postdictatorship poetry on the nineties. The poems' focuses are mainly on the landscape and on the city, as a strategy to preserve both collective and individual memory

Imagen-momia e imagen-ruina: La mise-en-film de las fotografías de los desaparecidos en el documental subjetivo de la posdictadura argentina / Image-mummy and image-ruin. Mise-en-film of missing people photographies in the subjetive documentary

En este artículo se analizan los diversos vínculos entre imagen fotográfica e imagen cinematográfica en los documentales subjetivos de la posdictadura argentina: Papá Iván (Roqué, 2000), Los rubios (Carri 2003), Encontrando a Víctor (Bruschtein, 2004), y M (Prividera, 2007). Se pone particular atención en las recurrentes escenas en las que los directores y entrevistados observan, comentan a interactúan con fotografías de los desaparecidos de la última dictadura militar (1976-1983). ¿En qué medida las filmaciones de las fotos ligadas al pasado argentino reciente modifican y construyen sus sentidos? ¿Refuerzan estas películas el valor de verdad de las fotografías al insertar un documento en otro y tratarlas en su carácter de prueba referencial o, por el contrario, multiplican las mediaciones y alejan aún más el referente de su signo? En suma, ¿qué ganan y qué pierden estas imágenes, en su mayoría extraídas del álbum familiar de los ausentes, al ser expuestas públicamente frente a la cámara de cine?This article analyzes the links between the photographic image and the cinematographic image in the subjective documentaries of the post-dictatorship period in Argentina: Papá Iván (Roqué, 2000), Los rubios (Carri 2003), Encontrando a Víctor (Bruschtein, 2004), and M (Prividera, 2007). The article focuses particularly on the numerous scenes in which the directors and the interviewees observe, comment, and interact with the photographs of the disappeared during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. To what extent does the filming of these photographs related to the Argentine past modify and construct the meanings of such images? Do these films reinforce the ‘value of truth’ of the photographs by inserting one document into another one and by treating them as referential proof of what has happened in the past? Or, on the contrary, do these films multiply the mediations and make the distance between the images and their referent even greater? In sum, what do these photographs, mostly taken from family albums, gain and what do they lose when they are put on public display in film

Forgotten Interventions: Beatriz Sarlo in the Postdictatorship Argentinean University (1984-1986)

Este artículo se enmarca en una investigación sobre las intervenciones de los críticos que trabajaron como profesores en la universidad argentina durante la fase inicial de la posdictadura (1984-1986) en las áreas de Literatura Argentina y Teoría Literaria. Estudio centrado en sus programas de cátedra (documentos desatendidos tanto por la crítica como por la historia) en diálogo con sus ensayos y entrevistas. Esta presentación gira sobre el programa que en 1984 Beatriz Sarlo arma para la materia “Literatura argentina II” y precisa qué lectura inventa para dicha literatura en relación con la escritura latinoamericana, tanto literaria como crítica.This article is part of a research project about the policies carried out by critics who worked as University teachers in Argentina during the initial stage of the postdictatorial period (1984-1986) in the areas of Argentine Literature and Literary Theory. This project studies their class syllabi—documents which have been overlooked both by criticism and by history—in dialogue with their essays and interviews. This presentation deals with the syllabus which was presented by Beatriz Sarlo in 1984 for her class “Argentine Literature II”, and specifies how she reads that literature in relation with Latin American critical and literary writing.Fil: Gerbaudo, Analía Isabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral; Argentin

One Foot in the Door:Evidence-based Limits on the Legislative Mandate

Legislative entrenchment or the long-term persistence of legislation has been associated with ineffective and obsolete laws. This position has nonetheless underestimated the natural bias towards the status quo that characterizes our legal order and the difficulty to terminate existing policies and laws. In this Article, I argue that the long-term stability of legislation only becomes a problem when it impedes the passage of new—and, in many cases, more effective—legislation. This Article aims to make two central contributions. First, it scrutinizes the legal and non-legal forces behind this problem. Second, it explains how temporary legislative measures should be employed to correct for the negative effects of legislative entrenchment. This Article suggests two ways in which these instruments may facilitate legislative reform. First, temporary legislative instruments (e.g., sunset clauses) can be employed as consensus-gathering mechanisms regarding legislative changes that might face initial opposition. Second, they can be employed as evidence-based mechanisms which promote research on available legislative alternatives. I contend that temporary legislative instruments such as sunset clauses, pilot programs, and state policy experiments should be used to produce evidence of the effectiveness of new legislation and rationalize the lawmaking process. This evidence-based approach can contribute to the disentrenchment of ineffective legislation and operate as a counterweight against certain de facto entrenchment force