Description
Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission not only documented the political violence of the 1980s and 1990s but also gave Peruvians a unique opportunity to examine the causes and nature of that violence. In Art from a Fractured Past, scholars and artists expand on the commission's work, arguing for broadening the definition of the testimonial to include various forms of artistic production as documentary evidence. Their innovative focus on representation offers new and compelling perspectives on how Peruvians experienced those years and how they have attempted to come to terms with the memories and legacies of violence. Their findings about Peru offer insight into questions of art, memory, and truth that resonate throughout Latin America in the wake of "dirty wars" of the last half century. Exploring diverse works of art, including memorials, drawings, theater, film, songs, painted wooden retablos (three-dimensional boxes), and fiction, including an acclaimed graphic novel, the contributors show that art, not constrained by literal truth, can generate new opportunities for empathetic understanding and solidarity.
Contributors. Ricardo Caro Cardenas, Jesus Cossio, Ponciano del Pino, Cynthia M. Garza, Edilberto Jimenez Quispe, Cynthia E. Milton, Jonathan Ritter, Luis Rossell, Steve J. Stern, Maria Eugenia Ulfe, Victor Vich, Alfredo Villar
Art from a Fractured Past is an interdisciplinary collection examining how Peruvians are representing, and attempting to make sense of, the violence of the 1980s and 1990s through art, including drawings, monuments, fiction, theater, and cinema.
About the Author
Cynthia E. Milton is Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Latin American History at the Universite de Montreal. She is the author of The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador and a coeditor of Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places and The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule.
Reviews
"Are there limits to representation? Is it possible to convey experiences that were unbearable, unspeakable, and inhuman? This collection's presentation and discussion of grounded, micro-level studies of Peruvian artistic representations show that in spite of all, people can and do express their feelings about violence and horror."-Elizabeth Jelin, author of State Repression and the Labors of Memory
"Cynthia E. Milton's stunning, inter-disciplinary collection illuminates how art intervenes in the memory of politics and the politics of memory in post-civil conflict Peru."-Diana Taylor, author of The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas
"This is a fascinating collection of essays about individual and collective memories in the aftermath of the violence that plagued Peru from 1980 until the mid-1990s. One of the richest collections available on the workings of memory in post-traumatic societies, it illuminates the complex and changing ways in which people recall and represent their experiences with violence, war, human rights violations, silencing, and exclusion."-Carlos Aguirre, author of The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds: The Prison Experience, 1850-1935
"Among other fields, this book represents a timely and important contribution to scholarship on the relationship between memory and art in post conflict societies, Latin American popular cultures and, of course, recent Peruvian history and culture." -- Patricia Oliart * Bulletin of Hispanic Studies *
"Milton's volume succeeds in providing a smart and timely analysis of the rich array of artistic expressions that participate in the making of Peru's post-conflict landscape." -- Joseph P. Feldman * Americas *
"Art from a Fractured Past is a valuable compilation of works connected by the theme of the production of art in postwar Peru. It holds the reader's attention by presenting art in its different forms of expression while showing how memory and truth-telling work in different ways, spaces, and periods." -- Nathalie Koc Menard * Hispanic American Historical Review *
"Cynthia Milton has gathered leading anthropologists, artists, literary theorists, musicologists, and historians, whose contributions compose a fascinating and coherent collection." -- Katherine Hite * Latin American Research Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780822355304
Author Cynthia E. Milton
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 526g
Contributors. Ricardo Caro Cardenas, Jesus Cossio, Ponciano del Pino, Cynthia M. Garza, Edilberto Jimenez Quispe, Cynthia E. Milton, Jonathan Ritter, Luis Rossell, Steve J. Stern, Maria Eugenia Ulfe, Victor Vich, Alfredo Villar
Art from a Fractured Past is an interdisciplinary collection examining how Peruvians are representing, and attempting to make sense of, the violence of the 1980s and 1990s through art, including drawings, monuments, fiction, theater, and cinema.
About the Author
Cynthia E. Milton is Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Latin American History at the Universite de Montreal. She is the author of The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador and a coeditor of Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places and The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule.
Reviews
"Are there limits to representation? Is it possible to convey experiences that were unbearable, unspeakable, and inhuman? This collection's presentation and discussion of grounded, micro-level studies of Peruvian artistic representations show that in spite of all, people can and do express their feelings about violence and horror."-Elizabeth Jelin, author of State Repression and the Labors of Memory
"Cynthia E. Milton's stunning, inter-disciplinary collection illuminates how art intervenes in the memory of politics and the politics of memory in post-civil conflict Peru."-Diana Taylor, author of The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas
"This is a fascinating collection of essays about individual and collective memories in the aftermath of the violence that plagued Peru from 1980 until the mid-1990s. One of the richest collections available on the workings of memory in post-traumatic societies, it illuminates the complex and changing ways in which people recall and represent their experiences with violence, war, human rights violations, silencing, and exclusion."-Carlos Aguirre, author of The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds: The Prison Experience, 1850-1935
"Among other fields, this book represents a timely and important contribution to scholarship on the relationship between memory and art in post conflict societies, Latin American popular cultures and, of course, recent Peruvian history and culture." -- Patricia Oliart * Bulletin of Hispanic Studies *
"Milton's volume succeeds in providing a smart and timely analysis of the rich array of artistic expressions that participate in the making of Peru's post-conflict landscape." -- Joseph P. Feldman * Americas *
"Art from a Fractured Past is a valuable compilation of works connected by the theme of the production of art in postwar Peru. It holds the reader's attention by presenting art in its different forms of expression while showing how memory and truth-telling work in different ways, spaces, and periods." -- Nathalie Koc Menard * Hispanic American Historical Review *
"Cynthia Milton has gathered leading anthropologists, artists, literary theorists, musicologists, and historians, whose contributions compose a fascinating and coherent collection." -- Katherine Hite * Latin American Research Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780822355304
Author Cynthia E. Milton
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 526g
