“Can the Story Be Told? History, Memory and Fiction in the Representation of Extreme Violence in Latin America”
Lecture by CARLOS PABÓN, University of Puerto Rico
710 Social Sciences
Cosponsored by the Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese and the Dept. of History.
Prof. Pabón will reflect on the relation between history, memory and fiction in the representations of traumatic pasts, with particular focus on the debates in Latin America. He will address the often contested politics of memory and the uses of forgetfulness with respect to events of massive political violence in cases such as Argentina and Chile; and the relation of these politics with historical writing and other modes of representation, such as witness testimony.
What aspects of a traumatic or catastrophic event must be remembered and how must we remember? What are the aesthetical, ethical and political implications of the narratives or representations of traumatic events of recent pasts? What are the limits of these representations?
Carlos Pabón is professor of History at the University of Puerto Rico. He is the author of the books Nación postmortem. Ensayos sobre los tiempos de insoportable ambigüedad (San Juan, Ediciones Callejón, 2002); Polémicas. Política, intelectuales, violencia (San Juan, Ediciones Callejón, 2014); and Mínima política: textos breves y fragmentos sobre la crisis contemporánea (San Juan, Ediciones La Secta de los Perros, 2015). He is editor of the collection of essays titled El pasado ya no es lo que era. La historia en tiempos de incertidumbre (San Juan, Ediciones Vértigo, 2005); and has published a great number of articles and essays on nationalism, globalization, intellectuals, historiography and memory.
At present he is working on a book on the ethical and political implications of the representations of genocide and other forms extreme violence in the Twentieth Century; and the problem of history and memory of traumatic events in Latin America.
