Liminal Sites: Transformations of Jewish Memory and the Public Sphere in Contemporary Argentina: a talk by Natasha Zaretsky

In response to political violence of the 1990s, Jewish Argentines turned to cultural memory as a way to navigate the aftermath, using public space to remember victims and demand justice and accountability. Over the last thirty years, they have convened weekly, monthly, and yearly commemorations and protests, developed educational initiatives, and built monuments and sites. Yet, with the passing time also comes an inevitable shift in the political and social landscape, as well as the memorial landscape, leading to questions about the evolving meaning of these sites in the public sphere. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Buenos Aires, this talk will reflect on the ephemeral and liminal nature of these sites, and what this suggests about the way Jewish Argentines navigate meaning in the face of violence and loss. BIO: Natasha Zaretsky is a cultural anthropologist who works on human rights, genocide, and the politics of memory in the Americas and the Jewish diaspora. Currently, she is Clinical Associate Professor at New York University and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University, where she leads the Truth in the Americas Initiative. A former Fulbright scholar, she holds her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Princeton University. Broader research interests include the role of cultural memory in rebuilding communities and nations. She has taught courses in anthropology, Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies, human rights, memory studies, comparative genocide, and writing at Princeton University, Rutgers University, and New York University. Her latest book, Acts of Repair: Justice, Truth, and the Politics of Memory in Argentina (Rutgers University Press 2021), explores memory and survival in the aftermath of genocide and political violence in Argentina.