Wednesday, March 25 in Small Hall 110, starting at 4:00 pm.
This colloquium commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1976 coup that ushered Argentina into its deadliest dictatorship, during which 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared. It also marks the 10th anniversary of President Obama’s visit to Argentina, which initiated a process of “declassification diplomacy” between the United States and Argentina. That process led to the release of thousands of U.S. government documents, helping to illuminate one of Argentina’s darkest periods.
The colloquium will begin with a roundtable at 4:00 highlighting William & Mary’s role in the Argentina Declassification Project, examining the practice and politics of declassification; archives as evidence for truth-seeking and trials; the ethics of secrecy and disclosure; and how primary sources change what we can teach, research, and know about the dictatorship and its afterlives. The roundtable will be moderated by Dr. Silvia Tandeciarz, Vice-Dean for Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies and Chancellor Professor of Hispanic Studies, and feature Isabel Mignone, member of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), an Argentine Human Rights NGO; Carlos Osorio, Director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project at the National Security Archive; John Powers ’89, Acting Director of the Office of the Historian (Department of State); Federico Schmeigel, Director of the Program for the Control of Corruption and Illegal Intelligence at the Provincial Commission for Memory (La Plata, Argentina); and Johanna Weech ’20, Research Transparency Program Manager at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA).
The roundtable will be followed by a panel of student presentations at 5:30 moderated by Dr. Betsy Konefal (Department of History) with presentations by Liana Carroll ’26, Hannah Deschler ’26, Georgia Freyer ’26, and Martina Queijo ’28.
The event will conclude with a performance of Personal Belongings, a 1975 play written by Diana Raznovich before she went into exile. The play is directed by Dr. Sarah Hart (Department of Theater & Performance) and acted by Amanda Sobrado ’27. It will take place in the Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall LAB Theater, starting at 7:00 pm. Book free tickets for the performance here (more information below).
About Personal Belongings
If you had to leave tomorrow, what would you pack?
Seemingly on her own, a “Diva” searches for her belongings among piles of suitcases in a baggage claim. What she finds: a tricycle, raincoats, the Mona Lisa and human bones…
Written in 1975 in Argentina, anticipating the military coup of 1976, this monologue by comedic feminist Diana Raznovich satirizes political detention and exile.
Personal Belongings, a bilingual play directed by Dr. Sarah Hart, takes audiences through a whirlwind of tragic, absurd events, as “Diva” (Amanda Sobrado ’27) loses her sense of place and self–is she coming or going?
Come to this one-act to see if she can find her belonging(s).
Watch the trailer by Taiga Lewis ’26 here.