Encore

1. This is the story of a repetition. General Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina for the first time in 1946, and served two terms of office, from June 4 of that year through September 21, 1955. From 1946 through 1952, his first term, he ruled with his wife Eva at his side, and this period was characterized by sweeping reforms that benefited the poorest sectors of society, such that “Perónism” became identified as a particular brand of Latin American “strongman” leftism.

Perón was deposed by a military coup d’état in 1955. Following a period of exile, he returned from Spain in 1973. In the intervening 18 years, Perónism had become a free-floating signifier of populism to be appropriated as needed by various factions. Upon Perón’s return, there was a clash between radical leftist Perón supporters, called Montoneros, and right-wing Perónists, at Ezeiza Airport. Thirteen unarmed leftists were killed in what became known as the Ezieza Massacre.

Upon returning to power, Perón joined forces with the rightwing elements and, together with his third wife Isabel, formed the Argentine Anticommunist Association, or Triple-A. They worked to purge the nation of leftists, including Montoneros and other leftwing Perónists. Later on, the Argentinian psychoanalyst and artist Oscar Masotta would describe himself as an “anti-anti-Perónista,” and it is in the context of this radically altered repetition that we can perhaps understand Masotta’s double negative.

2. This is the story of a repetition. The early work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, particularly that work collected in his volume , undertook to reread the Freudian corpus within a linguistic