3/18/2015 9:5 Keynote Speaker Steve J. Stern

3/18/2015 9:5 Keynote Speaker Steve J. Stern

Keynote Speaker
Steve J. Stern
Steve J. Stern holds a PhD in Latin American History from Yale
University and is Alberto Flores Galindo and Hilldale Professor of
History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is author and
editor of nine books, many of which have been published in Spanish
translation, on subjects
ranging from indigenous
struggles in colonial Peru and
gender in colonial Mexico to
memories of trauma and
violence in Peru, Chile, and
the rest of Latin America. He
has held visiting
professorships at various
universities in Peru and was
given the lifetime title of
Profesor Honorario in the
name of the Republic of Peru
at the Universidad Nacional
de San Cristóbal de Huamanga. Among other recent honors, he is
the recipient of the Cyril W. Nave Career Research Achievement
Award and the winner of the best book prize in Latin American
History from the Latin American Studies Association for his book
Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile
(Duke 2010), as well as multiple fellowships from the NEH, ACLS,
SSRC, and others. He is also co-editor of the “Critical Human Rights”
series of the University of Wisconsin Press, which has published over
a dozen books on human rights. He is currently writing a book on
memory and trauma in Latin American film.
3/18
List of Invited Speakers
Idelber Avelar is a Professor at Tulane University in New Orleans. His
latest books are Crônicas do estado de exceção (Azougue, 2014), Figuras da
Violência: Ensaios sobre Ética, Narrativa e Música Popular (UFMG, 2011)
and, coedited with Christopher Dunn, Brazilian Popular Music and
Citizenship (Duke UP, 2011). He has published over 60 articles in scholarly
journals and edited volumes, and over 100 position pieces in Latin
American print and electronic media. He was the winner of the Brazilian
Foreign Ministry essay contest on Machado de Assis and has been the
recipient of Rockefeller, Hewlett, and Ford Foundation grants.
Leila Lehnen is an associate professor of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin
American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She specializes in
contemporary Brazilian and Southern Cone literature. Her book Citizenship
and Crisis in Contemporary Brazilian Literature (Palgrave Macmillan 2013)
examines the representation and critique of differentiated citizenship
(Holston 2008) in contemporary Brazilian literature. She has published
articles on citizenship, social justice and globalization in Brazilian and
Spanish American literature, among other topics. She is currently working
on a book project about human rights, race, gender and class in Brazilian
literature and culture.
Cynthia Milton presently works on historical and artistic representations
in the aftermath of conflict, in particular contemporary Peru
(www.histoireal.ca). She is the editor of Art from a Fractured Past: Memory
and Truth-Telling in Post- Shining Path Peru (Durham: Duke Univ. Press,
2014), a co-editor of Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public
Places (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011) and The Art of Truth-Telling
about Authoritarian Rule (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).
3/18
Fernando Rivera-Díaz is an associate professor of Latin American
Literature at Tulane University. He has published on Andean Literature
and narratives of political violence in Peru. He is author of Dar la palabra:
ética, política y poética de la escritura en Arguedas
(Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2011).
Margarita Saona is an associate professor of Latin American literature
at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of Memory
Matters in Transitional Peru (Palgrave: 2014) and of Novelas Familiares:
Figuraciones de la nación en la novela latinoamericana
contemporánea (Beatriz Viterbo, 2004). She has published several
articles regarding memory and political violence, including “Plain Things
and Space in Memorials of Social Trauma” in Hispanic Issues On-Line,
"Memory Sites: From Auratic Spaces to a Cyberspace of Peruvian
Memorials" in the journal Dissidences, and “Cuando la guerra sigue por
dentro: Posmemoria y masculinidad entre Yuyanapaq y Días de
Santiago.” in Inti: Revista de Literatura Hispánica. She is also the author
of two collections of short fiction.
Dan Sharp is an assistant professor at Tulane University, jointly
appointed in music and Latin American studies. His book Between
Nostalgia and Apocalypse: Popular Music and the Staging of Brazil was
recently published on Wesleyan University Press as part of their
longstanding Music/Culture series. His articles have appeared in the
journals Latin American Music Review and Critical Studies in
Improvisation and the edited volume Brazilian Popular Music and
Citizenship.
3/18
Carlos Vargas-Salgado is an assistant professor of Spanish at
Whitman College, Washington. He has published on performance
studies applied to Latin American culture, Andean literatures, and
human rights in the Spanish-speaking world. His work has been
published in Latin American Theatre Review, Espéculo, Revista de
Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana, and various other volumes and
scholarly journals in Peru, Brazil, and the US. He is the editor of
Memory, Violence and Culture in Peru a special volume to be
published in 2015 by Hispanic Issues (University of Minnesota).
Lucero de Vivanco es profesora del Departamento de Lengua y
Literatura de la Universidad Alberto Hurtado, y Directora de
Investigación y Publicaciones en la misma institución. Es miembro
fundador de la Red VYRAL (www.redvyral.com). Sus investigaciones se
articulan en torno a la narrativa peruana, en la que explora las relaciones
entre literatura, cultura, violencia y sociedad; los estudios sobre
memoria, historia y representación; y el psicoanálisis relacional
(subjetividad y trauma). Entre sus publicaciones más recientes se
encuentran Historias del más acá: imaginario apocalíptico en la literatura
peruana (Lima: IEP, 2013), Memorias en tinta: ensayos sobre la
representación de la violencia política en Argentina, Chile y Perú (Santiago:
Ediciones UAH, 2013) del que es editora; y los artículos "Postapocalipsis
en los Andes: violencia y representación en la literatura peruana
reciente" (Taller de Letras. 2013, N° 52); "De mesías, pachacutis y
profetas: el apocalipsis o el discurso de la contingencia en el Perú"
(Revista Chilena de Literatura. 2012, N° 82); y "El capítulo PCP-SL en la
narrativa de Mario Vargas Llosa" (Revista Chilena de Literatura. 2011, N°
80).
Conference Schedule
Thursday, March 19th, 2015
4:00-5:30pm, Greenleaf Room, Jones Hall
Screening of Verdade 12.528
followed by a Q&A session with Co-director Paula Sacchetta
Paula Sacchetta é formada em Jornalismo pela Escola de Comunicações
e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), já trabalhou na Globo, na
TV Brasil e no jornal O Estado de S. Paulo. Ganhou o Prêmio Vladimir
Herzog de Anistia e Direitos Humanos com reportagem para o especial
da revista Caros Amigos sobre a Comissão Nacional da Verdade, em
2012, e realizou pesquisas para os livros Habeas Corpus e 60 anos da
Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos, da Secretaria de Direitos
Humanos da Presidência da República.
Friday, March 20th, 2015
Panel I: The Peruvian Case
Discussant: Fernando Rivera
8:30-10:15am, Greenleaf Room, Jones Hall
Cuerpos ausentes, cuerpos presentes: poéticas teatrales
alrededor del informe de la CVR
Carlos Vargas-Salgado, Whitman College
Como parte de los procesos de recolección de datos y de divulgación
realizados por la CVR, el uso de espectáculos de teatro y elementos de
teatralidad fue notorio, particularmente a través del trabajo del
colectivo Yuyachkani. Esta ponencia discute el encuentro/desencuentro
entre esa teatralidad artística propuesta por la CVR a través de
Yuyachkani, y las expectativas de la audiencia de las zonas afectadas
conectadas con una teatralidad cultural andina, muchas
veces contrapuesta a la mirada limeña. Así, al oponer las teatralidades
oficiales de la CVR con las de productores culturales originales de la zona
afectada (Lieve Delanoy, Barricada, Yawar Sonqo, ente otros) se puede
observar con claridad las profundas diferencias para narrar y documentar
el conflicto armado interno, y para percibir el rol que la CVR estaba
jugando. La moraleja de este proceso puede ayudar a comprender las
diferencias que aún sostienen la polémica sobre el valor del trabajo de la
CVR.
Images of Absence: The Use of Photography and Pictorial Art in
the Peruvian Collective Memory Movement
Margarita Saona, University of Illinois at Chicago
This paper will examine the mechanisms of signification created by
photographs used by Human Rights activists in the wake of the report of
the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These mechanisms
can be observed in practices already established by protest movements
all over Latin America, starting with the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in
Argentina. I will examine particular ways in which images establish a
connection to victims of Human Rights abuses, from the blown up ID
pictures carried by the relatives of "desaparecidos" to the metonymic
invocation created by Domingo Giribaldi in representing objects
exhumed from mass graves; from the photograph as evidence and the
"eyewitness" position of enunciation of photojournalistic images
favored by the Yuyanapaq exhibit to the synesthetic effect of the
close-up paintings by Ivana Ferrer.
Memoria, subjetividad y “verdad” en la literatura peruana
Lucero de Vivanco, Universidad Alberto Hurtado
La ponencia presenta una visión de la literatura peruana producida en los
últimos años, cuyo foco de atención está puesto en la representación del
periodo de violencia vivida en el contexto del conflicto armado entre
Sendero Luminoso y el Estado peruano, pero sobre todo, en los procesos
de memoria concomitantes a dicho período de la historia que están
quedando inscritos en los textos narrativos, bajo los diversos registros
genéricos del testimonio y la ficción. La ponencia pretende articularse
con el eje temático planteado para el simposio respecto de las formas en
que se “se dice la verdad” en los textos narrativos recientes y presentar la
emergencia en la literatura peruana de una suerte de disputa por la
construcción de subjetividades. Esta disputa se da integralmente en las
obras literarias (enunciado y enunciación), al deconstruirse las
representaciones decimonónicas del sujeto indígena y desplazarse la
figura tradicional del “letrado” criollo. Pero también –y es en lo que esta
ponencia se centrará– la disputa alcanza el terreno ético que cuestiona el
establecimiento de límites rígidos entre las categorías de víctima y
victimario, y reformula, en algunos casos, los supuestos de verdad,
justicia y memoria instaurados por el Informe de la Comisión de la
Verdad y Reconciliación del Perú.
Panel II: The Brazilian Case
Discussant: Dan Sharp
10:30am-12:00pm, Greenleaf Room, Jones Hall
Memory as an Enterprise: Memory Entrepeneurs in K., by
Bernardo Kucinski
Leila, Lehnen, University of New Mexico
This presentation examines the construction of the collective and
individual memory about the dictatorship through the work of
“memory entrepreneurs” in Bernardo Kucinski’s novel K. According
to Elizabeth Jelin, memory entrepreneurs attempt to resignify
collective memory by inserting new memories within this sphere. The
presentation will discuss how the novel’s protagonist – in his role of
memory entrepreneur – deals with the existential vacuum that is created
when a loved one disappears. But the labor of memory portrayed in the
novel transcends the personal realm. K. represents, in the fictional
ambit, an attempt to reconstruct the dictatorship’s social memory
through the narration/the labor of memory. As such, the novel
dialogues, albeit indirectly, with other discursive efforts to reconstitute
the memory of Brazil’s most recent dictatorship, such as the Comissão
Nacional da Verdade.
The Brazilian dictatorship and the Amazon: Persistence of a
colonial model
Idelber Avelar, Tulane University
434 is the official number of deaths and disappearances of the military
dictatorship (1964-1985) recognized in the recently released report of
the National Truth Commission. However, had the estimated 8,350 dead
and disappeared indigenous people been included, this number would
be exponentially higher. The Brazilian military had a distinct policy for
the Amazon, understanding it as an energetic colony and a void to be
occupied by progress and development, but that policy is rarely
addressed in the post-dictatorial assessments published in the country.
This presentation will analyze novels, short stories, and testimonies that
deal with this understudied aspect of the Brazilian dictatorship, its
unique relation to the world's greatest reservoir of biodiversity. Special
attention will be devoted to the landmark book recently published by
Yanomami shaman and leader Davi Kopenawa and anthropologist Bruce
Albert, The Falling Sky, which offers a detailed critique of policies
implemented by the Brazilian state in the Amazon, with an emphasis on
the expansion of land grabbing, mining, and energetic projects in the
region during the dictatorship.
12:30-3:30pm, Lunch at the 1834 Club (symposium presenters only)
Panel III: Looking at Both Cases
Discussant: Idelber Avelar
3:30-5:00pm, Greenleaf Room, Jones Hall
La memoria y la condición del testigo: el caso de La teta
asustada
Fernando Rivera, Tulane University
La Guerra Interna en el Perú (1980-2000) ha generado una serie de
discursos y relatos que intentan representarla y significarla. Entre ellos,
los testimonies personales que denuncian crímenes y violaciones de los
derechos humanos. ¿Son estos testimonios, en tanto estructuras
discursivas y narrativas, propios del evento, conllevando la marca de su
historicidad, o sólo son estructuras a disposición para expresar la
experiencia de la violencia? En esta ponencia se abordará la estructura
del testimonio en el contexto de la violencia política de la
Guerra Interna, a partir de la escena inicial de la película La teta asustada
(2008) de Claudia Llosa. En esta escena se explorará el sentido de la
figura del testigo apartir de la condición de nonato, como paradigmática
de las condiciones históricas de la violencia y dominación social y cultural
en el Perú. Además, se examinará la relación madre-hija, dada entre los
personajes, que sitúa e interpela a la hija como testigo de la violencia y
que marca el uso político de la lengua materna.
“I Returned to Replant Your Memory”: The Postdictatorship
Popular Music of Cordel do Fogo Encantado
Dan Sharp, Tulane University
This presentation explores the work of songwriter José Paes de Lira,
arguing that it reckons with the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1990s and
2000s, despite a conspicuous absence of direct references in the lyrics to
the dictatorship years. Lira's songs performed with the iconoclastic
Pernambucan band Cordel do Fogo Encantado, known for their
expansive temporality within the cultural field of popular music, drawing
upon the 1890s and the 1930s and embodying on stage folk heros such
as maverick millenarian preacher Antonio Conselheiro and bandit
Lampião. By invoking the memory of these historical figures violently
gunned down by government troops, I argue that Lira sought to
highlight continuities between the brutality of previous periods in
Brazilian history, and that of the dictatorship that had only just ended
when he began to perform.
Peruvian armed forces’ memory discourses
Cynthia Milton, Université de Montréal
More than a decade has passed since the Peruvian Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación,
CVR) published their findings on the conflict that claimed over 69,000
lives from 1980 to 2000. While the CVR placed primary responsibility for
deaths and disappearances (54%) on the insurrectionary group Shining
Path (Sendero Luminoso), it also named armed state actors as having
systematically committed acts of violence. Publicly shamed for their
collusion in the corrupt Fujimori government, state security forces
initially lent their support to the CVR and to the transition to democracy.
Yet, over the last decade, armed state actors have appropriated the
language, imagery and mechanisms of human rights memory
entrepreneurs to advance their own versions of Peru’s recent past which
oppose the CVR’s findings while highlighting state actors’ heroism. This
presentation examines some of the cultural means by which the armed
forces have endeavoured to reframe this past, in particular through
published texts such as testimonial accounts and works of fiction.
Keynote Speech with Steve J. Stern
5:30-7:30pm, Stone Auditorium, Woldenberg Hall
Followed by reception in Woldenberg Breezeway
Dangerous Truths:
Latin American Truth Commissions in Comparative Perspective
What difference does a truth commission make? After atrocity, which
truths remain too hot to handle for a very long time? Human rights
events in 2014 – a new truth commission report in Brazil, an intensified
but rocky effort to achieve a peace accord in Colombia, a partial release
of a torture report in the U.S. – underscored the continuing urgency of
such questions. Comparative analysis of Latin America’s truth
commissions illuminates the tension between “moment” and “process”
in human rights awareness, and suggests the distinctive dynamics of
truth telling in Brazil and Colombia.
Selected publications (in reverse chronological order):
--. The Human Rights Paradox: Universality and Its Discontents. Madison: U of
Wisconsin P, 2014.
--. The Artist’s Truth: The Post-Auschwitz Predicament After Latin America’s
Age of Dirty Wars. Art from a Fractured Past: Memory and Truth-Telling
in Post-Shining Path Peru. Ed. Cynthia E. Milton. Durham: Duke UP,
2014. 255-76.
---. (With Peter Winn et al). No hay mañana sin ayer: Batallas por la memoria
histórica en el Cono Sur. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2013.
---. Reckoning with Pinochet: The Memory Question in Democratic Chile, 19892006. Durham: Duke UP, 2010).
--. “Memorias en construcción,” Anuario de la Escuela de Historia 24 (Rosario,
Argentina, 2012), 99-119.
Presenter’s Publications
Avelar, Idelber. A letra da violência: Ensaios sobre narrativa, ética e
violência. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2010.
De Vivanco, Lucero. (Ed.) Memorias en tinta: ensayos sobre la
representación de la violencia política en Argentina, Chile y Perú.
Santiago: Ed. U Alberto Hurtado, 2013.
— . “De mesías pachacutis y profestas: el apocalipsis o el discurso de la
contingencia en el Perú.” Revista Chilena de Literatura 82 (2012)
Lehnen, Leila. Citizenship and Crisis in Contemporary Brazilian Literature.
New York: Palgrave, 2013.
Milton, Cynthia (Ed.) Art From a Fractured Past: Memory and TruthTelling in Post-Shining Path Peru. Durham: Duke UP, 2014.
—. (Co-ed. with Erica Lehrer and Monica Patterson) Curating Difficult
Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places. London: Palgrave,
2011.
Rivera, Fernando. “From Nation’s Ear and God’s Eye to the Language of
Reconciliation: The Commission of Truth and Reconciliation in
Peru.” Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 43.1
(2014).
—. “Writing the sexual-cultural encounter in the Andes: La hora azul by
Alonso Cueto.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90.7 (2013).
Saona, Margarita. Memory Matters in Transitional Peru. London/New
York: Palgrave, 2014.
—. “Plain Things and Space in Memorials of Social Trauma”. Hispanic
Issues On-Line 14 (2014).
Sharp, Daniel B. Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse: Popular Music and
the Staging of Brazil. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2014.
Vargas-Salgado, Carlos (Co-ed.) Memory, Violence and Culture in Peru.
Special volume of Hispanic Issues On-Line (forthcoming in 2015).
The Arts of Truth-Telling:
The Peruvian and Brazilian Truth
Commissions from a Comparative
Perspective
Thursday, March 19-Friday March 20, 2015
Tulane University
Sponsored by:
The Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Stone Center for Latin
American Studies, Newcomb College Institute, New Orleans Center
for the Gulf South (School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University)