Mariana Eva Pérez has a bachelor degree in Political Science from the University of Buenos Aires and a doctorate in Romance Literature from the University of Konstanz (Germany) with an investigation on the representations of disappearance in Argentine dramaturgy from 2001-2015.

She wrote her first works for the cycle Teatroxlaidentidad, which were staged in Argentina, Spain, Belgium, France, Bolivia, and Scotland and published in different anthologies. In 2008 she premiered independently Ábaco. In 2009, she won the VI “Germán Rozenmacher” Prize for New Dramaturgy for Toll. She published Diario de una princesa montonera (Intellectual Capital, 2012) and El pasado inasequible (Eudeba, 2018), with Jordana Blejmar and Silvana Mandolessi. She has an extensive career in the field of human rights and has participated in various projects that combine activism, science, and the arts.

Publications

Books:

2021. Entre el duelo inconcluso y el reconocimiento espectral. Representaciones de la desaparición en la dramaturgia argentina (2001-2015) (tesis doctoral). Buenos Aires: Paidós (en imprenta).

2021. Fantasmas en escena. Teatro y desaparición. Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos.

2018. (con Jordana Blejmar y Silvana Mandolessi, eds). El pasado inasequible. Desaparecidos, hijos y combatientes en el arte y la literatura del nuevo milenio. Buenos Aires: Eudeba.

 

Articles in magazines and books:

2021. "Elegía para una ciudad perdida: la Buenos Aires de Una muchacha muy bella de Julián López y las políticas locales de la (des)memoria”. Feenstra, Pietsie y Lorena Verzero (eds.). Ciudades performativas y prácticas artísticas: Buenos Aires, Berlín, Madrid (en preparación).

2018. “The Reparative Effects of Human Rights Trials. Lessons from Argentina.” (Reseña). Iberoamericana 18.69 (2018), 334 – 336.

2018 (con Águeda Goyochea y Sebastian Grynberg). “El cuco, los güérfanos, la glotonería de los normales y la elaboración de morcillas”. Gatti, Gabriel y Kirsten Mahlke (eds.). Sangre y filiación en los relatos del dolor. Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 175 –196.

2014. “The Concentration Camp and the ‘Unhomely Home’: The Disappearance of Children in Post-Dictatorship Argentine Theatre”. Schindel, Estela y Pamela Colombo (eds.). Space and the Memories of Violence. Landscapes of Erasure, Disappearance and Exception. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 119 – 131.

2014 (con Silvana Mandolessi). “The disappeared as Transnational Figure or How to Deal with the Vain Yesterday” European Review 22.4: 603 – 612.

2013. “Their lives after: Theatre as testimony and the so-called ‘second generation’ in postdictatorship Argentina”. Journal of Romance Studies 13.3: 6 – 16.

2012. “Una lectura de Antígona furiosa, de Griselda Gambaro”. Actas III Jornadas de la Asociación Argentina de Investigación y Crítica Teatral (AINCRIT). Buenos Aires, 23 – 36.

2011 (con Águeda Goyochea y Leonardo Surraco). “Definiciones del universo de víctimas desde el Estado post-genocida: la invisibilidad de los hijos de desaparecidos y asesinados como sujetos de derecho”. Actas 9ª Conferencia Bienal, International Association of Genocide Scholars. Buenos Aires, Web.

 

Research project as a fellow of CALAS (transatlantic tandem with Ulrike Capdepón)

Title: Childhood, captivity, and disappearance in Argentina. Surviving children in processes against humanity and sites of memory

Abstract: This tandem project aims to investigate the presence of surviving children in the legal and museum narratives that give meaning to the former clandestine detention and torture centers (CCDyT) of the dictatorship converted into places of memory. In the trials reopened since 2003, the logic of the evidence leads to the accumulation of cases around the clandestine centers where the crimes were committed. These places are material evidence and as such are preserved at the disposal of the courts. In turn, judicial decisions have a privileged impact on the narratives of memory sites, as they produce or validate historical accounts that give meaning to the facts judged and the material evidence preserved. We are interested in questioning the way in which these spaces of violence are perceived and re-signified by child victims, both those who remained kidnapped in those places and those who relate to them based on knowing that their parents were there. Establishing a nexus between the former CCDyT and the statements and judicial decisions that are organized around them, we ask ourselves: What place do child victims of the dictatorship occupy in judicial processes based on their role as plaintiffs, victims, and/or witnesses? What particular characteristics do their testimonials have? How are children who passed through concentration camps presented in the scripts of today's museums/sites of memory? How do the voices of former child victims influence and stress the dominant narrative and help change the discourse? In short: how do trials against humanity and memorial sites account for the presence and voices of child victims?