ABSTRACT
Argentina. As in the cases explored by Jo Labanyi in Spain, however, these ghosts are the symptom of silences about the dictatorship. While in Spain – until about 2000 – the persecution of Franco’s opponents and the summary execution of Republicans during the civil war were not to be publicly talked about, in Argentina the talking about the disappearances orchestrated by the military junta is often formulaic and beholden to the ideology and celebratory rhetoric of the political left of the 1970s, thus leaving a remainder that cannot be spoken. In both countries, ghosts ‘are reminders of a need for justice’ (Wilke 2010, 77), to cite Christiane Wilke’s observation on yet another country, Germany, with a ‘dark past’ that is prone to make unbidden appearances.
