Haunted Objects - by Megan Corbin (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book reconsiders a variety of material remainders from the past, in an effort to reveal the interpretive power that memory work in the present can gain from them: the everyday object of the detention center, the prison craftwork made as an important form of survival and resistance in the Chilean and Uruguayan detention centers, the personal items that belonged to the victim prior to his/her becoming victim, the bodies that emerge from mass graves, the bodies of the second generation that carry the material copies of the DNA of their disappeared parents, and the object that was once present at the scene of torture or detention and currently occupies the role of witness in the space of the museum"--

Book Synopsis

Examining testimonial production in Southern Cone Latin America (Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay), Haunted Objects analyzes how the changed relationship between the subject and the material world influenced the way survivors narrate the stories of their detentions in the wake of the political violence of the 1970s and 80s. It explores descriptions of objects within testimonial narratives and uses these descriptions to inform an analysis of how the objects that survived the violence -- items recovered by archeologists from former detention centers, the personal belongings of disappeared peoples, the prison craftwork created by political prisoners during their detention, and the bodies of the second generation children of the disappeared, all join together in memory projects in the post-dictatorship to offer "spectral testimony" about the past.

About the Author

Megan Corbin is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages and Cultures at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Her primary areas of research center around the post-dictatorship periods of Southern Cone Latin America and examine the ways in which individuals, groups, and society are working to fill gaps in historical memory through literary and artistic practices.