Restoring Memory in Recent Novels and Films from Argentina by John E. Baron, M.A., B.A. A Dissertation In Spanish Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Dr. John Beusterien Chair of Committee Dr. Jorge Zamora Dr. Natalia Matta Jara Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School December, 2016 Copyright 2016, John E. Baron Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my major professor, Dr. John Beusterien, as well as the other members of my committee, Dr. Jorge Zamora and Dr. Natalia Matta-Jara for their support, counsel, and advice in this process. I would also like to thank my wife, Stephanie, without whose support I could not have finished, and our families and friends that have been a constant strength to me. ii Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iv 1.Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 2.Secondary Memory in Twenty-First Century Argentina ......................................... 19 Cultural Memory ..................................................................................................... 20 Trauma ..................................................................................................................... 35 3.Twenty-First Century Novels and Collective Memory............................................. 46 Cultural Memory and Religious Connections in The Promised Hell: A Prostitute of the Zwi Migdal by Elsa Drucaroff ...................................................................... 47 Individual and Cultural Memory in On a Same Night by Leopoldo Brizuela ... 78 4.Twenty-First Century Films and Collective Memory ............................................ 105 Adrián Caetano’s Chronicle of an Escape as a Social Documentary of the Events of the Argentine Dirty War ................................................................................... 109 Alejandro Agresti’s Hopeful Recuperation of Argentine Cultural Memory in A Less Bad World ....................................................................................................... 141 5.Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 166 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 173 iii Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 Abstract Contemporary scholars agree that the revival of cultural memory concerning the horrors of the twentieth century in the Argentine memory began with kirchnerismo. The ongoing academic discussion about Argentina‟s more recent past, however, has largely ignored the way that the past traumas of the country have influenced the revival of collective cultural memory. This dissertation examines two novels and two films from twenty-first century Argentina. Each pair of novels and films offers a version of history while also offering a reflection on the results of memory, years after the events remembered occurred. The primary academic contribution of the study is to demonstrate how the two novels and two films shape cultural memory and in turn create a new Argentine cultural memory in which the memory of pain caused by social trauma has created a secondary memory. Chapter two focuses on the theories of cultural memory and trauma and how they relate to the Argentine experience. It examines two manifestations of secondary memory: postmemory and prosthetic memory because, instead of future generations having a postmemory that is born into the history of the past trauma, most Argentines share a prosthetic memory. Amy Kaminsky defines post memory as the memory that develops from silence as a way of understanding trauma of the past and generally emerges in subsequent generations that have a tie to the trauma but did not experience it themselves. For Kaminsky, prosthetic memory develops through the products of post memory, such as in art, music, literature, or film, and is generally seen in outsiders, that is, those that are not directly connected with the traumatic event. In the Argentine case, those that were iv Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 alive during the trauma itself, present the effects of postmemory, because the initial memory was wiped clean through government intervention and societal cleansing of the past. The advent of holocaust studies initially linked theories of cultural memory and trauma. Even though the Argentine case of trauma and the cultural memory shares some points of contact with the holocaust, the theorization of trauma in the Argentine case differs due to the wiping clean of collective memory primarily through quick trials and later silencing. The dissertation is a contribution to the field of cultural memory studies because it illuminates how the altered process of collective memories in Argentina produced a uniquely defined prosthetic memory in novels and films in subsequent generations. Chapter three analyzes secondary memory and is divided into two sections, each discussing a specific novel. The first section discusses The Promised Hell: A Prostitute of the Zwi Migdal (El infierno prometido: una prostitute de la Zwi Migdal) (2006) by Elsa Drucaroff. In The Promised Hell (El infierno prometido), Drucaroff presents a version of the white slave trade in Argentina. Her version of events serves to bring together her Argentine audience and helps it to recall traumatic events and thus overcome that trauma. She also uses commonly-known Judeo-Christian religious stories to make her reader sympathetic with a personal narrative. The second section discusses On a Same Night (Una misma noche) (2012) by Leopoldo Brizuela. Brizuela presents the way in which events in the present can remind the reader of similar circumstances in the past and thus generate an obsession with those previous events. This obsession then leads to a search for meaning in those events and in turn a way to overcome their trauma. v Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 Chapter four focuses on how cultural memory and trauma are addressed in Argentine film. This chapter is also divided into two sections. The first section discusses Chronicle of an Escape (Crónica de una fuga) (2006) directed by Adrián Caetano. Caetano‟s presentation of a detainee during the Process of National Reorganization (Proceso), also called the Dirty War (1976-83), plays on Bazin‟s idea of film as “social documentary” in that it presents a representation of what society desires to see about past trauma. The second section discusses A Less Bad World (Un mundo menos peor) (2004) directed by Alejandro Agresti. This film presents the ways in which the traumatic past is rediscovered in the present through the technique of using a small Argentine coastal town as setting. Agresti presents different social groups and a regional perspective to represent Argentina in coping with the past. vi Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 Chapter 1 Introduction One of the most influential ways that Argentines have sought to deal with the memory of the horrors of the twentieth century is through artistic mediums. The few examples in literature and film that presented the events and results of the Dirty War in the 1980‟s and early „90‟s such as: Artificial Respiration (Respiración artificial) by Ricardo Piglia while in exile in Spain in 1980, The Official Story (La historia oficial) (1985) directed by Luís Puenzo, and Night of the Pencils (La noche de los lápices) (1986) directed by Héctor Olivera, helped to keep the past from being erased completely in the minds of Argentines, but until the conditions in the present reawakened the memory of the past en masse a majority of Argentines chose to avoid the subject rather than deal with their own memories and roles in those events. This reawakening led to a resurgence in literature and film that dealt with the horrors of the past. María del Cármen Castañeda Hernández views memory as an abstract that materializes in literature and other art forms and thereafter becomes part of the collective cultural memory. This idea helps to understand the important role of novels and films in the revival of cultural memory in Argentina and serves as a basis for the focus of this dissertation. Also important in this discussion is the rise in the regional and individual nature of the films of the New Argentine Cinema movement. By centering on individual, local, and regional problems and then relating them to the global society, they have brought individuals back into the discussion of memory and in so doing have contributed 1 Texas Tech University, John E. Baron, December 2016 to the discussion of the past and the restoration of that past to the collective cultural memory (Amado 18-19). The novels and films presented in this dissertation are examples of the ever growing list of filmmakers and novelists that have embraced the past in an effort to portray and understand it within the culture that allowed it to happen at the time, ignored it for years after in an attempt to move beyond its horrors,