Memorias de la traición y la traición de la memoria: narrativas de la traición en Chile y Argentina
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Date
2024-01-09
Authors
Vidal, Yosa
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
My dissertation questions the current cultural boom of fictional and non-fictional works on the politics of memory, characterized by a Manichaean rhetoric of heroes versus enemies, heroes versus traitors. I argue that representations of betrayal, often evoking terrible forms of torture and suffering, allow us to critique a patriarchal and epic vision of the traumatic past in the Global South. In dialogue with literary theorists (Longoni, Ruiz, Sarlo, Avelar) and philosophers (Adorno, Benjamin, JM Bernstein, Derrida), my dissertation opens a conceptual space to imagine what it means to be a political actor in a political and economic system that benefits from such violence. My project contributes to the field of Latin American Memory Studies by analyzing three texts which have been overlooked by scholars: Marcia Merino’s autobiographical testimony (Chile, 1993); the graphic novel Perramus by Juan Sasturain and Alberto Breccia (Argentina, 1985); and Enrique Lihn’s play, Dialogues of the Disappeared (Chile, 2018). The Ontology of the Traitor (first chapter) studies the specificity and the effects of incarnating the body of a traitor. The Epistemology of Betrayal (second chapter) explores how betrayal is the spark of a journey that produces (or fails to produce) knowledge, and The Dialectic of Betrayal (third chapter) examines how a conversation about treason exposes both sides of an opposition that does not end in a conciliatory conclusion. These are paths to illuminate three disturbing and controversial texts, that raise uncanny questions about state sponsored violence, and challenge consensus politics of neoliberal democracies of the Southern Cone.
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Keywords
Argentina, Betrayal, Chile, Dictatorship, Memory, Politics