Irina R. Troconis, "The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution" 4.21
ICM NEW BOOKS SERIES
IRINA R. TROCONIS (Associate Professor, Department of Romance Studies, Cornell University)
The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution
Monday, April 21, 2025 | 4:45 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.
Goldwin Smith Hall G22
Free and open to the public
A conversation with Cornell faculty member Irina Troconis about her new book, The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution (Duke UP, 2025)
In the spring of 2013, televisions across Venezuela announced the death of then-president Hugo Chávez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution and key political actor in Latin America’s “turn to the left.” Chávez’s death, however, was not the end of Chávez’s life. In The Necromantic State, Irina R. Troconis examines how Chávez, as a “specter,” has lingered in Venezuela’s public, private, and digital spaces. Focusing on contemporary Venezuela and drawing from a diverse corpus that includes tattoos, toys, memes, graffiti, and a hologram haunting the streets of downtown Caracas, Troconis contends that, in moments of failed transitions, political tensions, and crises of legitimacy, the state brings the dead back to life to negotiate the terms of its survival. By showing how this necromantic performance enables the state’s material and visual manifestations in public and private spaces, Troconis untangles a sociopolitical moment in which the ghostly acts as the affective, social, and political force that grounds state authority and ensures the preservation of the status quo, as it circumscribes acts of political imagination and limits popular resistance.
IRINA TROCONIS is Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies in the Department of Romance Studies. She holds a PhD in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from New York University, and an MPhil Degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge (UK). Her areas of specialization include: Memory Studies, Venezuelan Studies, Politics and Performance, Affect Theory, Visual Culture, Material Culture, and Digital Humanities. She is the co-organizer of the online conversation series (Re)thinking Venezuela/(Re)pensando a Venezuela, currently in its fifth seasonrina R. Troconis is Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies in the Department of Romance Studies. She holds a PhD in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from New York University, and an MPhil Degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge (UK). Her areas of specialization include: Memory Studies, Venezuelan Studies, Politics and Performance, Affect Theory, Visual Culture, Material Culture, and Digital Humanities. She is the co-organizer of the online conversation series (Re)thinking Venezuela/(Re)pensando a Venezuela, currently in its fifth season.
