Radical Justice

Reading Radical Justice is not for the faint-of-heart, but for the not-so-faint. I suspect it would be worthwhile. In Radical Justice Martín-Cabrera mourns the impossibility and inadequacy of memory and offers some hope in this bleak vision of at least some modes of resistance, found in the figure of the melancholic detective and in the political documentaries of the second generation struggling to encounter the reality of trauma, or the Lacanian Real, in Martín-Cabrera’s lexicon. * Project Muse *
How do we situate ourselves as intellectuals and citizens, before an act of injustice? Is it possible remedy experiences of extreme injustice ? These are the questions that this book explores from a theoretical, legal, political and cultural perspective. Focusing on the case of Chile, Argentina and Spain—three countries that suffered most repressive dictatorships paths in the second half of the twentieth century—the author intelligently analyzes critically the different ways they have tried to answer these questions politicians, academics, citizens and courts, with a particular focus on the political documentary film and crime fiction. ... Martin Cabrera raises an important and crucial question: what is our duty as intellectuals and citizens, to demand justice for victims of different forms of political repression? * Revista de ALCES XXI *
I found the experience of reading Radical Justice to be extraordinary refreshing and engaging. At long last there is a voice among the younger generation of Hispanists who has something really important to say on an interdisciplinary topic that truly matters, not only within but also outside of the academy. . . . Radical Justice is all of an intellectual project - in the highest sense of the term. It is not just another set of 'readings," however clever, not just another stepping stone along the career ladder, however adroitly taken. It is a work of serious and often compelling thought that will provoke others to respond both in agreement and in principles debate. -- Tom E. Lewis, The University of Iowa