BOOK PRESENTATION: Memory in Question: How Do the Right Remember Argentina’s Recent Past?, coordinated by Valentina Salvi and Luciana Messina (Forthcoming: Siglo XXI Editores)
The volume, written by a group of scholars, examines the current challenges faced by memory politics in the context of the rise of right-wing forces in Latin America and will be published in March 2026, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina.
The presentation invites discussion of the book’s analysis of the transformations in social memories of state terrorism and political violence during the 1970s, with particular attention to the impact of new interpretations advanced by right-wing actors. These narratives have contributed to the reordering of the field of social memory of the recent past in various ways: by shifting the focus from the crimes of the dictatorship to the actions of armed organizations, constructing an alternative chronology, and questioning the consensuses established around the disappeared and the legitimacy of the human rights movement.
The book explores these disputes in all their complexity, attending not only to their inherently conflictive character but also to their capacity to generate persuasive narratives about past violence. In doing so, these emergent memories foster a wide range of social responses, from identification with their narratives and demands to rejection and backlash against the memory politics consolidated during the democratic transition.
The presentation will bring together the book’s coordinators and three invited discussants: Katherine Hite (Vassar College), Custodio Velasco Mesa (Universidad de Sevilla) and Juan Besse (Universidad de Buenos Aires). The aim is to foster dialogue among diverse academic perspectives and intellectuals from different countries and fields of social inquiry, in order to interrogate the meanings at stake and reflect
20260729T154520260729T1715America/Argentina/Buenos_AiresBOOK PRESENTATION: Memory in Question: How Do the Right Remember Argentina’s Recent Past?, coordinated by Valentina Salvi and Luciana Messina (Forthcoming: Siglo XXI Editores)SV304MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
