According to Jacques Derrida in Specters of Marx, a specter, a ghost, is not simply nothing, and the urgency to address their existence—to address them—can be incited in the name of justice—thought as a certain kind of specter. Justice, for Derrida, is a specter insofar as justice as such is only present “where it is not yet, not yet there, where it is no longer, let us understand where it is no longer present, and where it will never be, no more than the law, reducible to laws or rights” (Derrida 1994, xviii; 1993, 15). What Derrida has in mind when he writes these lines is the paradox at the core of justice, an intrinsic contradiction and impotence expressed in the impossible universalization of justice. Justice, which in principle and by principle should serve all (otherwise, how could it be just?), can only enact its principle...
Specters of Justice: An Essay on the Documentary Films of Patricio Guzmán, Justice, and Ghosts
Paula Cucurella is an essayist, poet, and translator. Her poems have been published in Mexican poetry journals (Círculo de poesía, Revista Monolito, La Rabia del Axolote, and Revista Marcapiel) and in Revista Laboratorio (Chile). She is the literary translator of El Can de Kant by David Johnson (Metales Pesados, November 2018), El Mundo en Llamas by David Johnson (Pólvora Editorial, 2019), co-translator of Bottles to the Sea (SUNY, 2014), and of poems by Rosa Alcalá and Eileen Miles. Her academic work has been published in The New Centennial Review, Revista Laboratorio, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, and Latino Studies, among other journals. She has published two poetry books: Demasiada luz para hacer poesía (2020, Dobleaeditores, Santiago, Chile) and Los últimos inanes días, a collection of vignettes (December 2020, Dobleaeditores, Santiago, Chile). Her first theory book Nicanor Parra, Jacques Derrida, y la poesía en tiempos de censura: un ensayo was published this year in Chile (Pólvora Editorial, March 2021). Paula has a PhD in comparative literature (SUNY at Buffalo) and is currently beginning a PhD in Hispanic studies (UC Riverside).
Paula Cucurella; Specters of Justice: An Essay on the Documentary Films of Patricio Guzmán, Justice, and Ghosts. CR: The New Centennial Review 1 March 2023; 23 (1): 83–103. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/crnewcentrevi.23.1.0083
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