Im geschützten Raum

This article explores the musical events organized by the Goethe Institute during the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1990). An examination of the cultural and political discussions around these musical programmes demonstrates that the function of music as a tool for promoting democracy was understood in the context of the cultural activities of the Federal Republic of Germany in Chile. I explore the ways in which projects from the fields of jazz and contemporary music were understood as vehicles of democratic ideals, the consequences of the resulting musical transfers for the local musical life, as well as the shaping of a particular image of West Germany in Chile. (Vorlage)

Crisis y refundación del mito democrático: el octubre chileno, preguntas y tensiones

Based on a critical theoretical tradition of democracy, the article rehearses an interpretation of the Chilean revolt of October 2019. It is argued that this episode indicates the exhaustion of the myth in which democracy obtains its legitimacy and perpetuation as a promise of the realisation of its founding values. To this end, it examines the overall historical context in which the Chilean democratic transition is taking place, thus discovering its close link to the order designed by the Chilean dictatorship. A series of symbolisms articulate the global market order with the social model favoured by the dictatorship, but implemented with a democratic appearance. Finally, the elements that allow us to understand the signs of the collapse of the ‘democratic mythologem’ in the October revolt are reviewed and questions are asked about the political challenges that are posed.

Afectividades y desplazamientos escriturales en la obra de Nona Fernández

Nona Fernández's work has been catalogued within what is known as the "generation of the children" to refer to those narrations by authors who were children during the Chilean dictatorship. The work of the Chilean writer Nona Fernández will be analyzed to understand how the writing process, its relationship with the event and the processes of subjectivation of the characters, from a narrative perspective towards the autobiographical and autofictional genres, have been crossed by fiction to question the constructed certainties and the failures of memory. We will focus mainly on two works which have a thread of narratological and historical continuity, such as Space Invader (2013) and La dimensión desconocida (2016). Both works are related by the terrible events that happened during the Chilean dictatorship. Everything narrated in a cyclical time, like an unknown dimension, living in the present the horrors that we thought were past.

Girl Protagonists of Chilean Dictatorship Novels for the Young

Narratives for children about Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile (1973–89) written by the sons and daughters of that era constitute a recognised genre. For the most part the genre features boy characters who not only have voice and choice, but also unrealistically win the fight against the oppressors. This paper examines two of the rare works with girl protagonists, paying attention to how their voices are constructed: Mariana Osorio Gumá's Tal vez vuelvan los pájaros [Maybe the birds will return] (Mexico, 2013) and Matilde by Carola Martínez Arroyo (Argentina, 2016). I apply Deleuze's theories about the gaze to girls to identify patterns that afford the construction of ‘lucid’ protagonists in terms of recurring modes of language production (silence, ordered discourse, invention), giving rise to inquisitive girls. Through the construction of a girl's lucid gaze, which can withstand and narrate the horrors of the dictatorship, these novels offer young audiences a powerful space for historic and collective memory.

Chile and Pinochetism, a popular dictatorship?

This article probes into the “popular” dimension of the Chilean dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet, also branded “pino-chetista”, in its efforts to seek legitimacy among elite and middle-class groups, but especially among shantytown dwellers. In this it exhibited some peculiar traits, which set it apart from other dictatorships in Latin America’s Southern Cone. Its hypothesis suggests that the social support received by Chile’s dictatorship and “pinochetismo” was actively sought by its ruling circles, mainly on account of two factors: the urge of military officers and civilian backers to legitimize the coup d’état and the regime it set up, and the process of personalization that overtook it and eventually led to “pinochetismo”. Its aim was a re-socialization of the popular classes, turning them into adherents of its neoliberal authoritarian project. This venture implied the formation of state apparatuses capable of penetrating the popular world.

A Gunshot, Dying, and Living: Writing Into Activism

In this article, I explore the idea of inquiry as activism through remembering the activism made by my aunt and uncle during the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1989). I try to understand how their story lives on in me and affects who I am and who I have become. I work with the idea of “the ghost,” as something missing that calls for a change, as something of the past that keeps asking for answers in the present. With the death of my uncle and the gunshot my aunt received, I try to think of how their “ghost” keeps doing activism when I am working on my own trauma.

A Poetic of Beauty: Nature, Memory and Resilience in El Botón de Nacar/The Pearl Button (2015)

One of the pillars of the history of Latin American documentary filmmaking is undoubtedly the Chilean director Patricio Guzmán. During more than five decades of film production, he has given an account of Chile's political history, specifically dealing with the meaning of the Chilean dictatorship for the country's past, present and future, as well as its relevance in the Latin American context. His films undoubtedly represent one of the most relevant testimonies to the continent's history in the 20th century, with hundreds of hours of footage of the high points in the violent transition process between the Allende and Pinochet governments. His film proposal will take a radical turn in his last two productions: Nostalgia de la Luz ([2010] 2011) and El Botón de Nácar (2015), which are part of a trilogy - the latter film is currently in production. Its aesthetic proposal is revolutionary in the sense that it resignifies the relationship between memory and history by establishing a connection between nature, cosmology and historical memory. In this trilogy he deals separately in each film with the desert, the sea and the mountain, leading the viewer to a reflection that, through poetic language and a meditative tone, proposes a new look at history and memory. In this essay I analyze three elements that define his film El Botón de Nacar and that open the possibilities for a new type of theoretical reflection on the documentary genre: the relationship between nature, narration and history, history understood as genealogical memory and the new type of visual aesthetic that the director is proposing, which I call "poetry of beauty".