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Between the Pinochet Machine and Thousands of Imagined Nations” is an invitation to explore the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup d’état (1973-2023) and its consequences for contemporary politics and culture in Chile and the Americas. 

“Women for Life”, by Marcela Briones

During the Fall of 2023, Dartmouth College is hosting one exhibition and three events to delve into the cultural, political and historical dimensions of the 1973 coup d’état and its contemporary consequences for Latin American and the world.

The first is the exhibition on display now through September 30, 2023 in the Baker-Berry Brickway, "Between the Pinochet Machine and Thousands of Imagined Nations," an invitation to explore the period between 1973 and 2023 through images, short videos and text. The exhibit was curated by Mauricio Acuña, Mellon Faculty Fellow of Spanish and Portuguese, and Jill E. Baron, Research & Learning Librarian for Humanities & Social Sciences, and was designed by Dennis Grady. 

The second activity is “Noche de tertulia y poesía - Peña de Victor Jara” at La Casa, a night of poetry to honor the poet, singer-songwriter and political activist who was shot during the coup d’état in 1973. This event is organized by Mauricio Acuña, Mellon Faculty Fellow of Spanish and Portuguese and Maria Clara de Greiff, La Casa Live-in Faculty.

The third event is a virtual lecture by Elizabeth Hochberg (University of Washington), titled "Specters of the End: Sabotage and Coup d’états in Allende-era Fiction." This event is organized by Mauricio Acuña, Mellon Faculty Fellow of Spanish and Portuguese.

The final event is a webinar about the legacies of September 11, 1973, with Mário Garcés, Joanne Pavilack and Alison Bruey. This event is organized by Pamela Voekel, Department of History.

We are thankful to the people in Chile, Brazil, and the Dartmouth community who supported this initiative.

All activities are sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Department of History, the Department of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Dartmouth Library.

Exhibition: Chile 1973-2023: Between the Pinochet Machine and Thousands of Imagined Nations.

Baker-Berry Brickway

Now through September 30, 2023

The exhibition depicts three banners and a digital screen with six short videos. The first banner offers a brief perspective on Salvador Allende’s Government (1970-1973) and the Military Regime (1973-1990), emphasizing the popular engagement in the first case and the human rights violations in the second. The second banner displays an artistic intervention created by Elías Adasme in 1979-80, titled Corporal Intervention in a Private Space. The third banner jumps into contemporary issues of the Chilean experience, particularly the recent massive manifestations and conflicts known as “Estallido Social.” The sequence of video clips features writers, politicians, musicians, and activists who resisted Pinochet’s dictatorship, as well as those protesting more contemporary conditions of oppression.

Banner from the exhibition “Chile 1973-2023”, Dartmouth Library

Please refer to the Dartmouth Library research guide to learn more about this period: dartgo.org/chile.

Chile 1973-2023:
entre a catástrofe da utopia e a duração da resistência

Article published by Mauricio Acuña in the media outlets Biblioteca Virtual do Pensamento Social and Outras palavras (In Portuguese). Link.

“O cineasta que mirou estrelas para dissecar os desaparecidos políticos. O poeta-aviador que plana sobre o terror chileno. Os sorrisos de ‘estallido’ de Gabriela Mistral. Uma cartografia dos “mundos” de Allende diante da Máquina Pinochet.”

Arpillera chilena

Noche de tertulia y poesía - Peña de Victor Jara

Poetry readings inspired by the figures of Pablo Neruda, Victor Jara, Cecilia Vicuña and Diamela Eltit, some of the most iconic Chilean artists of the period. There will be food and refreshments.

La Casa, 42 North Street College, Hanover, NH 03755.

October 1st, 2023 at 7pm. 

Specters of the End: Sabotage and Coup d’états in Allende-era Fiction (Virtual Lecture)

October 4th, 2023, at 2:10pm.

The lecture by Elizabeth Hochberg will explore the ways in which paths to dictatorship are imagined and interwoven in novels of the period, analyzing the political complexity of members of the working class and the cultural production in the face of threats to democracy. 

Registration:
https://dartmouth.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uDMXVST7SAqk9mawkOlWjg

Public Domain

Legacies of September 11, 1973

Oct. 10th, 2023 at 6 p.m. in Rockefeller 003.

History professor Pamela Voekel will host a Zoom panel with Chilean historian Mário Garcés Durán of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, the author of multiple works including the influential Tomando su sitio. El movimiento de pobladores de Santiago, 1957-1970; University of Montana historian Joanne (Jody) Pavilack, author of the award-winning book, Mining for the Nation; Alison Bruey, professor of history at the University of North Florida and author of the critically acclaimed book, Bread, Justice, and Liberty: Grassroots Activism and Human Rights in Pinochet's Chile; and Chilean human rights activist Magdalena Garcés Fuentes.

Susana Hidalgo