The Art Of Truth-telling About Authoritarian Rule

by Bilbija, Ksenija; Fair, Jo Ellen; Milton, Cynthia E.; Payne, Leigh A.

• ISBN13: 9780299209049
• ISBN10: 0299209040
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-15
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

People who have lived through authoritarian rule have stories to tell. They want to tell their truths: truths that have been silenced, truths that have been censored, truths that are still uncomfortable. But how do individuals begin to speak about a political past that was too horrible for words, especially when the words only came in torrents of pabulum, snake oil, and venom? How are versions of events that have slipped outside of official narratives best voiced in a society moving out of authoritarianism? This generously illustrated volume examines the art of truth-telling and the creation of stories, accounts, images, songs, street theater, paintings, urban designs, and ideas that pay witness to authoritarian pasts. This comprehensive collection, with contributions by scholars, activists, and artists from around the world, explores this theme across a range of national experiences, each featuring its own unique set of historical, institutional, and cultural conditions. This book is bold, creative in form and content, and unlike any other treatment of authoritarian transitions, with the editors and contributors daringly staking a place for cross-disciplinary conversations on modern history, creative art, politics, and social meaning. By examining the truths--both official and unofficial--about the past, we can learn how to avoid repeating atrocities in the future.

Author Biography

Ksenija Bilbija is professor of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Yo soy trampa: Ensayos sobre la obra de Luisa Valenzuela. Jo Ellen Fair is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UW-Madison and editor of African Issues. Cynthia E. Milton is assistant professor of history at the Université de Montréal and author of the forthcoming book The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador. Leigh A. Payne is professor of political science at UW-Madison and author of Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right-Wing and Democracy in Latin America.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction	p. 2
Now for a story	p. 10
Writing pasts : the work of Seno Gumira Ajidarma	p. 16
Youth struggle	p. 18
Banging out the truth : the story of empty pots and pans	p. 22
Artworlds	p. 24
Fragments of a past : the work of Zoran Mojsilov	p. 30
Reckoning with state violence	p. 31
A park for memories	p. 32
Through the grapevine	p. 34
Recollecting the dead	p. 40
Alive, until truth arrived	p. 42
Rumors of war	p. 44
The power of song	p. 46
Exhuming popular memory	p. 52
Traces	p. 54
Politics in the raw	p. 55
Moving images	p. 56
Coming back	p. 63
Alternate visions	p. 64
Batas militar	p. 66
Humor that makes trouble	p. 68
Teasing out the truth : the work of Zapiro	p. 78
Laughing at power : the work of Corax (Predrag Koraksic)	p. 80
Seriously funny	p. 81
Performing truth	p. 82
Unearthed truths	p. 90
Outing perpetrators	p. 92
After the fall	p. 94
Memoryscapes	p. 96
Gen XX	p. 103
Naming	p. 104
Ruins of the past	p. 110
Story is history is story ...	p. 112
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