From politic to history. Historiographies and aesthetics about dictatorships

Abstract

This paper attempts to problematize the ways that have been built interpretations over the dictatorial past in Chile and Argentina, privileging the study of aesthetic productions. It aims to build a research track, nthrough the explanation about the conflict between institutional policies of memory and the critical re-appropriations of recent history. The study of aesthetic dimension, as particular form of historical reconstruction, has two reasons: 1) because they have not been enough studied from a historiographical critic and, 2) because they contain an epistemological potential to make reflections over the possibilities of understanding a complex historical period. The focus of analysis is the tension between institutionalized policies and live history and the ways in which each uses the aesthetic dimension to produce explanations about the past.