A queer approach to the representations of Argentina's recent past

MOIRA PÉREZ

Nueva York

Workshop; Workshop with Moira Pérez; 2016

Department of History, New York University

In this workshop, Prof. Pérez proposes reading public representations of the recent Argentine past from the perspective of a queer philosophy of history. Her work contends that queer approaches offer valuable tools to look into how and why we forge our past as we do, what the "mess" is that historical narratives frequently try to "tidy up", which mechanisms it adopts in order to do so, and how all of this relates to our present interests. In the workshop, we will analyze various mechanisms that are deployed in the production of representations of the liminal events that shook Argentina in the Seventies, specifically in relation to the ways in which the protagonists of the resistance against State terrorism are selected, presented and described. Finally, we will read these practices of public memory as cases of political anxiety, and rethink them in the light of the potency that a queer approach offers.