The Political, Aesthetic, and Ethical Responses to Ruins in Latin America. A Review of (eds.) Michael J. Lazzara and Vicky Unruh's <em>Telling Ruins in Latin America</em> (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009)

Abstract

How can we explain that at the center of the project of modernity lies a pile of ruins? Modernity, with its wars, its mechanized visions of progress, its consumption, is nurtured by destruction, the constant demand to keep constructing, to keep looking ahead, propelled by its storm. Ruins invite us to remember, and that ethical imperative becomes a political standpoint in Latin America. From the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu and the Aztec ruins swallowed by the modern landscape as in el Templo Mayor and Tlatelolco, to commemorative sites such as Chile’s Villa Grimaldi and its hidden bodies in ruins, that remind us of the many desaparecidos in Latin America, ruins have always a story to tell.