New in Paperback: Citizens of Memory

Affect, Representation, and Human Rights in Postdictatorship Argentina

Silvia R. Tandeciarz

2025
352 pages
$39.95
ISBN 9781684485833
Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory

Citizens of Memory explores efforts at recollection in post-dictatorship Argentina and the hoped-for futures they set in motion. The sites, images, narratives, and practices it analyzes address the dark years of state repression (1976-1983) while engaging ongoing debates about how this traumatic past should be transmitted to future generations. This insightful study approaches cultural recall via two theoretical principles - the first understands memory as a social construct that is as much about the past as it is of the present, and the second observes that what distinguishes memory from history is affect. Understanding recollection and storytelling as practices that can help constitute communities of belonging, Tandeciarz suggests that by inciting deep reflection and an active engagement with the legacies of state violence, interventions like those studied here may advance transitional justice and contribute to the construction of less violent futures.

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Reviews
"This book . . . invites us to think about the past with the future in mind, not only to gain historical understanding of past events, but also to broaden current discussions about the democracies we inhabit, the relevance of human rights, and the possibilities of collective action." -Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel laureate

"Blending personal memory with cultural critique, Citizens of Memory is a moving inquiry into Argentina's postdictatorship landscape. In a moment when memory is under threat - in Argentina and globally - Tandeciarz shows how affect, activism, archives, and art sustain the past as a force for justice, pedagogy, and civic imagination." -Michael J. Lazzara, author of Civil Obedience: Complicity and Complacency in Chile since Pinochet

"Citizens of Memory investigates how Argentina's commemorative practices after dictatorship recast shared trauma into forms of collective agency and civic engagement. Focusing on emotionally resonant cultural expressions, Tandeciarz shows how remembrance shapes civic identity, challenges official narratives, and opens pathways toward justice, belonging, and a less violent future." -Daniel Levy, coauthor of Human Rights and Memory

About the author:

SILVIA R. TANDECIARZ is a chancellor professor of modern languages and literatures and vice dean for social sciences and interdisciplinary studies at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Distributed by Rutgers University Press