Latin America in the paths of the recente past: crossroads of the theory and teaching of its history

Abstract

In this work I want to recover some punctual contributions on the studies of memory and the writings of the trauma from the approaches of the intellectual history and the interpretation of the text, where a fruitful dialogue is evidenced between a hermeneutics of history nurtured by psychoanalysis. I will refer to the theoretical-conceptual contributions of two specialists: Dominick LaCapra, recovering some of his ideas expressed in Writing History, Writing Trauma (2001), and Paul Ricoeur, focusing on his early reflections on Du texte á l'action (1986, translated into Spanish only in 2001), putting historiography and psychoanalysis into dialogue from the category of trauma (Davoine and Gaudilliere, 2011). In this scenario, from our university teaching space we set out since 2020 to address the study of political violence in Latin America from audiovisual production, taking as sources for its study films, documentary or not, in order to be able to analyze variables such as general information about the film (year, director, cast), the plot of the film, the explanation of the historical context in which the story of the film takes place, the description of the theme(s) it addresses and explanation of the production context of the film, the relationship of the film with said context and the intentionality of the directors and producers of the film and, specifically, the vision it proposes about state or civil violence, a crucial aspect that intertwines issues around the story , memory and public uses of the past.