eBook - PDF
Disappearing Acts
Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War"
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
In Disappearing Acts, Diana Taylor looks at how national identity is shaped, gendered, and contested through spectacle and spectatorship. The specific identity in question is that of Argentina, and Taylor's focus is directed toward the years 1976 to 1983 in which the Argentine armed forces were pitted against the Argentine people in that nation's "Dirty War." Combining feminism, cultural studies, and performance theory, Taylor analyzes the political spectacles that comprised the warâconcentration camps, torture, "disappearances"âas well as the rise of theatrical productions, demonstrations, and other performative practices that attempted to resist and subvert the Argentine military.
Taylor uses performance theory to explore how public spectacle both builds and dismantles a sense of national and gender identity. Here, nation is understood as a product of communal "imaginings" that are rehearsed, written, and stagedâand spectacle is the desiring machine at work in those imaginings. Taylor argues that the founding scenario of Argentineness stages the struggle for national identity as a battle between menâfought on, over, and through the feminine body of the Motherland. She shows how the military's representations of itself as the model of national authenticity established the parameters of the conflict in the 70s and 80s, feminized the enemy, and positioned the publicâlimiting its ability to respond. Those who challenged the dictatorship, from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to progressive theater practitioners, found themselves in what Taylor describes as "bad scripts." Describing the images, myths, performances, and explanatory narratives that have informed Argentina's national drama, Disappearing Acts offers a telling analysis of the aesthetics of violence and the disappearance of civil society during Argentina's spectacle of terror.
Taylor uses performance theory to explore how public spectacle both builds and dismantles a sense of national and gender identity. Here, nation is understood as a product of communal "imaginings" that are rehearsed, written, and stagedâand spectacle is the desiring machine at work in those imaginings. Taylor argues that the founding scenario of Argentineness stages the struggle for national identity as a battle between menâfought on, over, and through the feminine body of the Motherland. She shows how the military's representations of itself as the model of national authenticity established the parameters of the conflict in the 70s and 80s, feminized the enemy, and positioned the publicâlimiting its ability to respond. Those who challenged the dictatorship, from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to progressive theater practitioners, found themselves in what Taylor describes as "bad scripts." Describing the images, myths, performances, and explanatory narratives that have informed Argentina's national drama, Disappearing Acts offers a telling analysis of the aesthetics of violence and the disappearance of civil society during Argentina's spectacle of terror.
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Yes, you can access Disappearing Acts by Diana Taylor in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Latin American & Caribbean History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Preface
- Chapter 1. Caught in the Spectacle
- Chapter 2. Gendering the National "Self"
- Chapter 3. Military Males, "Bad" Women, and a Dirty, Dirty War
- Chapter 4. The Theatre of Operations: Performing Nation-ness in the Public Sphere
- Chapter 5. Percepticide
- Chapter 6. Disappearing Bodies: Writing Torture and Torture as Writing
- Chapter 7. Trapped in Bad Scripts: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
- Chapter 8. Staging Battles of Gender and Nation-ness: Teatro Abierto 1981
- Chapter 9. Crossing the Line: Watching Violence in the "Other" Country
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index