UC Santa Cruz

Abstract

Cora Starker Gorman Malone

The Testimonial World: Affect and Ethics

in Latin American Literature and Film (1969-1991)

This dissertation explores how theories of affect and ethics inform our understanding of the way testimonial texts communicate with readers. Adopting a broad definition of &ldquothe testimonial world&rdquo to encompass fictional and documentary literature and film, the pages that follow focus on testimonial work in Latin America from 1969&ndash1991. By exploring testimonial&lsquos narrative qualities, historical relationship to ethnography and memoir, and attention to gender and ethnicity, this study considers the symbolic re&ndashrepresentation of violence in testimonial texts and the ethics (and the reader&lsquos ethical position) they advocate, particularly in positioning the reader as responsible to an &ldquoother&rdquo who is a victim of violence.

I investigate literary and filmic texts that respond to the violence of systemic socioeconomic marginalization as well as the imprisonment, death and disappearance, traumatic and post&ndashtraumatic experience brought about by state&ndashsponsored violence; these texts span various regions and genres, and include La noche de Tlateloco and Rojo amanecer (Mexico), Si me permiten hablar (Bolivia), El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo (Peru), Conversación al sur (Uruguay and Argentina), The Little School, Pasos bajo el agua and La historia oficial (Argentina) and Que Bom Te Ver Viva (Brazil). One of the concerns brought to the fore through this project is whether there is a fundamental difference with the discussion of affect in testimonial work due to its relationship to real&ndashworld violence. I argue that through a comparative rereading of testimonial attentive to the deterritorialized play of affect, these texts reconceive of distinctions between the public and private spheres, collective and individual stories, and the self and its responsibility to the other. My reading demonstrates that the intersubjective qualities of the testimonial imaginary allow it to articulate an ethics of readership in the communication of violence.