{"id":{"repo_id":"buffalo","oai_identifier":"oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/84073"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/buffalo/oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/84073","repository":{"repo_id":"buffalo","name":"Buffalo","base_url":"https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Testimony and Imagination: The Power of the Human Rights Fiction for Argentina's Dirty War","abstract":"M.A.","abstract_html":"M.A.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Kenney, Georgeann; 0000-0002-8410-3693"],"institution":"State University of New York at Buffalo","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Irlam, Shaun","English"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-06-21T15:47:38Z","date_published":"2022-06-21T15:47:38Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:30Z","subjects":["literature","comparative literature"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10477/84073","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Irlam, Shaun","English"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Kenney, Georgeann; 0000-0002-8410-3693"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-06-21T15:47:38Z","2020"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["State University of New York at Buffalo"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["literature","comparative literature"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/84073"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["M.A.","History is a mixture of fact and fiction blended together beyond recognition. Laura Stoler in her book Along the Archival Grain investigates the archival process and attempts to \"distinguish between what was 'unwritten' because 'everyone knew it,' what was unwritten because it could not yet be articulated, and what was unwritten because it could not be said\" (Stoler 2009). She argues that official colonial archives are products of state machines that \"reproduce those states themselves\" (Stoler 2009). [H]istory is built on the official documents and letters that are left behind for us. Cathy Caruth also investigates [H]istory, but she tackles the question in reverse. Rather than exploring the official colonial trail, she begs the question of how to retrieve a history whose advent is \"constituted by the way it disappears from consciousness, that eludes or erases memory in the very act of creating new events\" (Caruth 2013). In authoritarian regimes – such as the Argentine dictatorship from 1976-1983, on which this paper is centered – censorship is used as an oppressive tactic to keep citizens in line. When the military junta took control of the Argentine state, they simultaneously took control of the historical record.This paper investigates the literature of the Argentine 'Dirty Way,' with a focus on fiction. In attempt to uncover what happened under the military junta during this regime, one will encounter warring narratives. Speeches, newspapers and official government documents can provide important details about the time period; they also leave certain things out. Works of fiction and poetry about the regime can lend an understanding as to what it felt like under the junta – but they do not stand as credible sources for the Archive. This exclusion is unfair. Jacques Derrida argues in his text, Demeure, that fiction constitutes the possibility of testimony. He writes that testimony will \"always suffer both having, undecidably, a connection to fiction, perjury, or lie and never being able or obligated – without ceasing to testify – to become a proof\" (Derrida, 2000.) Truth and fiction exist within the same language, and often find themselves indiscernible from one another. In this paper, I will argue that authors of the Dirty War used rhetorical language to evoke emotion and write fiction – but as state officials, their literature gained access to the Archive. Two of the books I discuss are novels centered around invented characters living in Argentina during the Dirty War; they are Lawrence Thornton's Imagining Argentina, and Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases. The third text is a work of 'testimonial fiction,' entitled The Little School written by a survivor, Alicia Partnoy. Through these texts I will explore the power of fiction as a counter-weapon, and the instability of 'facts' under the Argentine dictatorship.","**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact library@buffalo.edu. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.**"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Testimony and Imagination: The Power of the Human Rights Fiction for Argentina's Dirty War"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Irlam, Shaun","English"],"dc:creator":["Kenney, Georgeann; 0000-0002-8410-3693"],"dc:date":["2022-06-21T15:47:38Z","2020"],"dc:description":["M.A.","History is a mixture of fact and fiction blended together beyond recognition. Laura Stoler in her book Along the Archival Grain investigates the archival process and attempts to \"distinguish between what was 'unwritten' because 'everyone knew it,' what was unwritten because it could not yet be articulated, and what was unwritten because it could not be said\" (Stoler 2009). She argues that official colonial archives are products of state machines that \"reproduce those states themselves\" (Stoler 2009). [H]istory is built on the official documents and letters that are left behind for us. Cathy Caruth also investigates [H]istory, but she tackles the question in reverse. Rather than exploring the official colonial trail, she begs the question of how to retrieve a history whose advent is \"constituted by the way it disappears from consciousness, that eludes or erases memory in the very act of creating new events\" (Caruth 2013). In authoritarian regimes – such as the Argentine dictatorship from 1976-1983, on which this paper is centered – censorship is used as an oppressive tactic to keep citizens in line. When the military junta took control of the Argentine state, they simultaneously took control of the historical record.This paper investigates the literature of the Argentine 'Dirty Way,' with a focus on fiction. In attempt to uncover what happened under the military junta during this regime, one will encounter warring narratives. Speeches, newspapers and official government documents can provide important details about the time period; they also leave certain things out. Works of fiction and poetry about the regime can lend an understanding as to what it felt like under the junta – but they do not stand as credible sources for the Archive. This exclusion is unfair. Jacques Derrida argues in his text, Demeure, that fiction constitutes the possibility of testimony. He writes that testimony will \"always suffer both having, undecidably, a connection to fiction, perjury, or lie and never being able or obligated – without ceasing to testify – to become a proof\" (Derrida, 2000.) Truth and fiction exist within the same language, and often find themselves indiscernible from one another. In this paper, I will argue that authors of the Dirty War used rhetorical language to evoke emotion and write fiction – but as state officials, their literature gained access to the Archive. Two of the books I discuss are novels centered around invented characters living in Argentina during the Dirty War; they are Lawrence Thornton's Imagining Argentina, and Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases. The third text is a work of 'testimonial fiction,' entitled The Little School written by a survivor, Alicia Partnoy. Through these texts I will explore the power of fiction as a counter-weapon, and the instability of 'facts' under the Argentine dictatorship.","**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact library@buffalo.edu. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.**"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/84073"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["State University of New York at Buffalo"],"dc:rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"dc:subject":["literature","comparative literature"],"dc:title":["Testimony and Imagination: The Power of the Human Rights Fiction for Argentina's Dirty War"],"dc:type":["Text","Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:30Z"}