Desde tiempos prehispánicos la escritura nos invita a repensar nuestras relaciones sociales, culturales y políticas. Si nos abocamos a la presencia de la naturaleza en la literatura escrita por los pueblos originarios es constante y su forma de manifestarse resulta ser infinita, las palabras y los versos van trenzando voces, colores y sensaciones que dialogan entre sí, es así como los textos se mueven entre la oralidad, la palabra y lo pictórico, a través de la necesidad de trascender más allá de la naturaleza, esto permitió aproximarnos a su propia cosmovisión, tanto del ser humano como sus vínculos con la naturaleza. Agradecemos a las y los autores que forman parte de esta edición número doce de la revista Simpson 7. La diversidad de voces testimonia los vínculos indisolubles, que se han dado a través de la historia, entre literatura y artes visuales. —Isabel Gómez Muñoz, Presidenta SECH

A CCC alumna, artist and activist, Marisa Cornejo made a film on the events that took place on Santiago’s Plaza Italia, which became the Plaza de la Dignidad on the 18th of October, 2019. For several weeks, demonstrators gathered there in the face of police repression to demand better social justice and the repeal of the Constitution inherited from the Augusto Pinochet regime. On the 13th of March, 2021, the government removed the statue of General Baquedano; a symbol of Chilean divisions which stood in the centre of the square and had just been damaged. A military hero for some, a genocidaire of indigenous populations for others, Baquedano left in the middle of the night, through the back door. Cornejo teamed up with her daughter Katya Kasterine and Cecilia Moya Rivera (a CCC student) to add to the film a multi-voice essay, a diary of the protest, published in English and Spanish. Together they weave together memories of a country criss-crossed with multiple conflicts, hopes, violence and inequalities, where the absent presence of the statue of the general has become a leitmotif.　

This book assesses the key definitions, forms, contexts and impacts of terrorist activity on the arts in the modern era, using historical and contemporary perspectives.

Its empirical case studies include theatre, literature, music, visual art, mass media, film and the mores of ‘ordinary life.’ While its immediate reflective context is Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, the book reviews a broader range of definitions and counter-definitions of ‘terrorism’, ‘state terrorism’ and ‘states of terror,’ examining uses of the terms through a series of comparative analyses. Chapters focus on the intersection of these definitional questions with heuristic analysis of art forms, cultural activities and their socio-historical contexts.

This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, terrorism, politics and the media, and visual culture.