Nelly Richard is a renowned Latin American cultural studies theorist. Born in France and a graduate of the Sorbonne, Richard has lived in Chile since 1970. Among her many books are La estratificaciÓn de los mÁrgenes and PolÍticas y estÉticas de la memoria.Alice A. Nelson is a Member of the Faculty at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She is the author of Political Bodies: Gender, History, and the Struggle for Narrative Power in Recent Chilean Literature.Silvia R. Tandeciarz is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at the College of William and Mary. She is the author of Exorcismos, a book of poetry.

“At last, Nelly Richard’s work is available for English-language readers. A leading figure in the theater of Latin American critical debate, Nelly Richard has written with unorthodox brilliance about the Chilean transition to democracy, North-South cultural relations, and the value of aesthetic intervention to rethink the politics of difference.”-Francine Masiello, author of The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neoliberal Crisis “The Chilean publication of this book and of its companion volume (Masculine/Feminine) confirmed and advanced Nelly Richard’s reputation as one of the foremost critical voices of the age. Richard’s brand of cultural critique, informed by a thorough attention to contemporary forms of subjectivity, is unmatched in the force of its theoretical articulation, its aesthetic sensitivity, and its sharp deployment of political strategies. Nelly Richard is today an essential reference for intellectual work in Latin America and beyond.”-Alberto Moreiras, author of The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies "Nelly Richard mobilizes language into a trenchant critique of the political, academic, and market-oriented production of meaning that ushers in quiescent solutions to crises such as that of the postdictatorial reconciliation in Chile. Like the aesthetic projects she endorses, her work gives expression to the ‘diffuse zones of the unsaid.’ Richard wrestles the materiality of critique so that it maintains the inscriptions of antagonism, making it an indispensable instrument for an effective democratic culture. In The Insubordination of Signs, her words add muscle to the Benjaminian insight into rebellious memories that will not be quashed by ‘final and totalizing truths.’”-George YÚdice, author of The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era

• Author’s Note ixTranslators’ Acknowledgments xiNote on This Translation xvii1. Ruptures, Memory, and Discontinuities (Homage to Walter Benjamin) 12. A Border Citation: Between Neo- and Post-Avant-Garde 233. Destruction, Reconsstruction, and Deconstruction 39 4. The Social Sciences: Front Lines and Points of Retreat 515. Staging Democracy and the Politics of Difference 656. Conversation: German Bravo, Martin Hopenhayn, Nelly Richard, and Adriana Valdes 77Notes 103Bibliography 113Index 121

Nelly Richard is a renowned Latin American cultural studies theorist. Born in France and a graduate of the Sorbonne, Richard has lived in Chile since 1970. Among her many books are La estratificaciÓn de los mÁrgenes and PolÍticas y estÉticas de la memoria.Alice A. Nelson is a Member of the Faculty at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She is the author of Political Bodies: Gender, History, and the Struggle for Narrative Power in Recent Chilean Literature.Silvia R. Tandeciarz is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at the College of William and Mary. She is the author of Exorcismos, a book of poetry.

“At last, Nelly Richard’s work is available for English-language readers. A leading figure in the theater of Latin American critical debate, Nelly Richard has written with unorthodox brilliance about the Chilean transition to democracy, North-South cultural relations, and the value of aesthetic intervention to rethink the politics of difference.”-Francine Masiello, author of The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neoliberal Crisis “The Chilean publication of this book and of its companion volume (Masculine/Feminine) confirmed and advanced Nelly Richard’s reputation as one of the foremost critical voices of the age. Richard’s brand of cultural critique, informed by a thorough attention to contemporary forms of subjectivity, is unmatched in the force of its theoretical articulation, its aesthetic sensitivity, and its sharp deployment of political strategies. Nelly Richard is today an essential reference for intellectual work in Latin America and beyond.”-Alberto Moreiras, author of The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies "Nelly Richard mobilizes language into a trenchant critique of the political, academic, and market-oriented production of meaning that ushers in quiescent solutions to crises such as that of the postdictatorial reconciliation in Chile. Like the aesthetic projects she endorses, her work gives expression to the ‘diffuse zones of the unsaid.’ Richard wrestles the materiality of critique so that it maintains the inscriptions of antagonism, making it an indispensable instrument for an effective democratic culture. In The Insubordination of Signs, her words add muscle to the Benjaminian insight into rebellious memories that will not be quashed by ‘final and totalizing truths.’”-George YÚdice, author of The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era

• Author’s Note ixTranslators’ Acknowledgments xiNote on This Translation xvii1. Ruptures, Memory, and Discontinuities (Homage to Walter Benjamin) 12. A Border Citation: Between Neo- and Post-Avant-Garde 233. Destruction, Reconsstruction, and Deconstruction 39 4. The Social Sciences: Front Lines and Points of Retreat 515. Staging Democracy and the Politics of Difference 656. Conversation: German Bravo, Martin Hopenhayn, Nelly Richard, and Adriana Valdes 77Notes 103Bibliography 113Index 121

Nelly Richard is a renowned Latin American cultural studies theorist. Born in France and a graduate of the Sorbonne, Richard has lived in Chile since 1970. Among her many books are La estratificaciÓn de los mÁrgenes and PolÍticas y estÉticas de la memoria.Alice A. Nelson is a Member of the Faculty at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She is the author of Political Bodies: Gender, History, and the Struggle for Narrative Power in Recent Chilean Literature.Silvia R. Tandeciarz is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at the College of William and Mary. She is the author of Exorcismos, a book of poetry.

“At last, Nelly Richard’s work is available for English-language readers. A leading figure in the theater of Latin American critical debate, Nelly Richard has written with unorthodox brilliance about the Chilean transition to democracy, North-South cultural relations, and the value of aesthetic intervention to rethink the politics of difference.”-Francine Masiello, author of The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neoliberal Crisis “The Chilean publication of this book and of its companion volume (Masculine/Feminine) confirmed and advanced Nelly Richard’s reputation as one of the foremost critical voices of the age. Richard’s brand of cultural critique, informed by a thorough attention to contemporary forms of subjectivity, is unmatched in the force of its theoretical articulation, its aesthetic sensitivity, and its sharp deployment of political strategies. Nelly Richard is today an essential reference for intellectual work in Latin America and beyond.”-Alberto Moreiras, author of The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies "Nelly Richard mobilizes language into a trenchant critique of the political, academic, and market-oriented production of meaning that ushers in quiescent solutions to crises such as that of the postdictatorial reconciliation in Chile. Like the aesthetic projects she endorses, her work gives expression to the ‘diffuse zones of the unsaid.’ Richard wrestles the materiality of critique so that it maintains the inscriptions of antagonism, making it an indispensable instrument for an effective democratic culture. In The Insubordination of Signs, her words add muscle to the Benjaminian insight into rebellious memories that will not be quashed by ‘final and totalizing truths.’”-George YÚdice, author of The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era

• Author’s Note ixTranslators’ Acknowledgments xiNote on This Translation xvii1. Ruptures, Memory, and Discontinuities (Homage to Walter Benjamin) 12. A Border Citation: Between Neo- and Post-Avant-Garde 233. Destruction, Reconsstruction, and Deconstruction 39 4. The Social Sciences: Front Lines and Points of Retreat 515. Staging Democracy and the Politics of Difference 656. Conversation: German Bravo, Martin Hopenhayn, Nelly Richard, and Adriana Valdes 77Notes 103Bibliography 113Index 121