When memory talks a trick. About Confesión by Martín Kohan

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Heterotopías Volumen 7 Número 13. Imagen de portada de Roxana Ramos
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Published: Jun 25, 2024
Keywords:
confession;, memory;, nuances

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Laura Raso
Facultad de Filosofía, Humanidades y Artes-Universidad Nacional de San Juan
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6388-5844
Gabriela Simón
Facultad de Filosofía, Humanidades y Artes-Universidad Nacional de San Juan
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9996-4435

Abstract

We approach “Confesión” by Martín Kohan (2020). Three stories build the plot of this novel to come together in a single one. We are interested in analyzing not only the significance that the title in the singular anticipates, but also the confessions that are delineated in the novel through different nuances (Barthes, 2004). We understand that confession can be thought of as a technology (Foucault, 1991), a technique that produces truth as an effect, as well as an enunciative mechanism of truth. In the novel, several figures of confession are configured: that of the erotic-sexual "sin" more fantasized than consummated by an adolescent girl; that of a desperate mother who seeks help from a soldier, betraying her own son in her desire to save him; that of a grandmother who, by telling a story, confesses the story of her father to her grandson in the family sphere. However, this is not the story of a search for truth. Truth as symptom emerges where the subject can no longer remain silent. From these approaches we ask ourselves about the "confession" in the stories narrated: what are these confessions?, how to read them?, from which figures and nuances are they constructed?, what are the effects they produce?

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How to Cite
Raso, L., & Simón, G. (2024). When memory talks a trick. About Confesión by Martín Kohan. Heterotopías, 7(13), 1–8. Retrieved from https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/heterotopias/article/view/45431
Issue
Vol. 7 No. 13 (2024): Writings on the edge of the abyss: How is the present constructed?
Section
Articles
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Author Biographies

Laura Raso, Facultad de Filosofía, Humanidades y Artes-Universidad Nacional de San Juan

Bachelor in Literature from the National University of San Juan and Master in Contemporary Argentine Literature from the National University of Cuyo. She works as Adjunct Professor in charge of the "Argentine Literature II" course (section 2) in the Department of Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy, Humanities, and Arts of the National University of San Juan. For the last 15 years she has dedicated herself to the study of dictatorship and post-dictatorship narratives and has published numerous articles on the subject. For the past 25 years, she has co-directed and been a member of research teams based at the Literature Institute of the aforementioned Faculty. She is the author of the book Sin coartadas. Ética de la escritura de Liliana Heker durante el menemato (Portaculturas, 2017). She has also participated in several publications, among others: Entre matices. Notas sobre literatura argentina y latinoamericana (Editorial UNSJ, 2021), Coreografías de lo neutro. Escritos sobre literatura argentina contemporánea (Portaculturas, 2015), and as co-author of El vocabulario de Roland Barthes (Comunicarte, 2012).



Gabriela Simón, Facultad de Filosofía, Humanidades y Artes-Universidad Nacional de San Juan

Professor and Bachelor of Literature from the National University of San Juan; Master in Sociosemiotics and PhD in Semiotics from the National University of Cordoba. She works at the Faculty of Philosophy, Humanities and Arts of the National University of San Juan, as a Full Professor in the "Literary Theory" and "Semiotics" chairs of the Department of Letters and as Director of the Institute of Literature. There she directs the Semiotic Studies Program. She is currently 1st Vice-President of the Argentine Semiotics Association (AAS). The last two decades she has dedicated his research to the work of Roland Barthes, especially the so-called “last Barthes”. The projects that she has directed and directs are part of the field that the teacher-researcher calls between Literature and Semiotics. Her publications include the books: as author, Las semiologías de Roland Barthes (Alción, 2010), as director and co-author, El vocabulario de Roland Barthes (Comunicarte, 2012) and as coordinator, Coreografías de lo neutro: escritos sobre literatura argentina (Portaculturas, 2015) and Entre matices. Notas sobre literatura argentina y latinoamericana contemporáneas (Editorial UNSJ, 2021).



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