Dialogues of historicity and horizontalism in post-Crisis Argentine narratives

Abstract

This doctoral thesis examines how historicity and horizontalidad emerged as the pre-eminent cultural discourses in the period following the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina, reflecting a sea-change in individual and collective attitudes to the past, present and future. It analyses the dialogic relation between these two discourses through their cultural articulations in a range of texts, from literary fiction, journalism, documentary and feature films to television drama. The thesis begins with an exploration of the crisis itself and the denaturalizing effect it wrought upon Argentine society, rupturing the boundaries of the possible in both socio-political and cultural terms. Chapter One explores the theoretical specificities of historicity and horizontalidad within the Argentine context. It also analyses a selection of journalistic narratives from Mu, a monthly magazine produced by the autonomous media collective lavaca. Chapter Two explores hauntology as the dominant mode of historicity in the 2004 novel El cantor de tango and interrogates the limits of any historicist endeavour that does not encode the potential for radical change in the future. Chapter Three examines spatial iterations of historicity and horizontalidad in the suburban hinterland of greater Buenos Aires, in the 2011 documentary La multitud and the 2012 feature film Elefante blanco. Chapter Four focuses upon the haptic materiality of the historicist narratives which feature in the 2010 television mini-series Lo que el tiempo nos dejó, a drama that privileges the everyday people and places of the past. In Chapter Five, the ludic historicity of Las aventuras de los bustos de Eva Peron and the horizontalist impulse of its grotesque narrative modality is investigated. Finally, the Epilogue reflects upon the evolving relationship between historicity and horizontalidad in the years since the 2001 Crisis and posits the findings of this thesis alongside some suggestions for their implementation in future analysis of contemporary Argentine culture.