History 313: Discourses of Dictatorship: Testifying Against Torture in Guatemala and Argentina

This interdisciplinary class crosses the borders of history and literature, considering the genres of literature, testimony, oral history, and visual representation as ways of knowing.  The focus will be on the late twentieth-century dictatorships of Guatemala and Argentina. While both countries are in Latin America, they are dramatically different: Guatemala is a poor, underdeveloped nation with a majority indigenous population, while Argentina is more highly developed and prides itself on a majority European population. Yet both countries were ruled by dictatorships that carried out gruesome torture against their own citizens. The class questions how and why these dictatorships came to power and were able to operate with impunity. We will also explore how the history of the period can be known and its horrors expressed in meaningful ways. Readings include theoretical approaches regarding testimony and oral history as methods, truth commission reports, memoirs, fictionalized accounts, and filmic representations. Course taught in English.  May be elected as Hispanic Studies 456. Course may count toward the Latin America geographical area, and the Comparisons and Encounters major requirement in History, but must be taken as History 313 for it to apply toward the major in History. This course satisfies the Narrative/Essay or Visual Cultures requirement or the film/theatre requirement for the major in Hispanic Studies.