National University of Rosario Honors Political Scientist Pilar Calveiro with Doctor Honoris Causa
The National University of Rosario (UNR) has awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa degree to Pilar Calveiro, a Doctor in Political Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and research professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico City. The distinction recognizes her significant contributions to the study of power, violence, politics, and memory in Latin America. The award was promoted by the Human Rights Area in conjunction with the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations and unanimously approved by the UNR Superior Council.
“I especially value this recognition because it comes from an Argentine university, a public and free institution, and because it is the prestigious and beloved UNR,” stated Calveiro. “The timing of the award, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the bloodiest and most pretentious military coup in our history, which profoundly impacted the lives of Argentines, including my family, is too deeply meaningful.”
The ceremony, held at the University Cultural Space, was presided over by UNR Rector Franco Bartolacci and the Dean of the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Cinita Pinillos, who served as Calveiro’s godmother. Pinillos remarked, “It is an honor to be the godmother of this event due to the importance of Pilar’s work, academic career, and life for the institutions linked to human rights and social sciences in our country.”
Dean Pinillos highlighted the university’s commitment to recognizing Calveiro’s “academic and life trajectory as a fundamental contribution to the study of state violence, contemporary forms of power, memory policies, the transformations of neoliberalism, and the multiple practices of resistance that emerge against them.”
Paula Contino, Secretary of Human Rights of the UNR, delivered the laudatio outlining Dr. Calveiro’s career. Rector Bartolacci emphasized, “I would like to highlight the determining reason that justifies this title, which goes beyond a mere curriculum. It is a testament to a way of life, a way of thinking and feeling about the world that especially challenges, mobilizes, and moves the UNR community.” He added, “It is a privilege to welcome her into our community of teachers.”
Bartolacci further stated, “Recognizing a trajectory is a political declaration of the institution, revealing what it aspires to be and how it envisions itself. In the context of the 50th anniversary of the coup, it is valuable that the UNR prioritizes the agenda of human rights, memory, truth, and justice, particularly in the current times.”
Following the speeches, Pilar Calveiro received the Doctor Honoris Causa degree and a medal. Students from the Social Communication major presented her with a work created for the occasion – a series of graphic proposals inspired by the cover of her book, “Power and disappearance. The concentration camps in Argentina.”
UNR authorities and Calveiro posed for a photograph holding handkerchiefs silk-screened by students from the School of Fine Arts of the Faculty of Humanities and Arts, bearing the slogan “Memory, truth, justice.”
Calveiro concluded the event with a conference titled “Reverberations of the past.” She asserted that “the military coup that occurred 50 years ago and that we remember today was the most radical expression of state and criminal violence in our history. However, the authoritarian and disappearing violence did not begin or end there. It was prior and continues to this day even though with different formats.”
“At the same time, civil society has not been alien to these processes, it has its own responsibility and it is essential to recognize it with the distinctions of the case. There is no doubt that the current violence of this neoliberalism recharged with its biopolitics of death connects with those, with its neocolonial, racist, patriarchal, authoritarian and disappearing objectives but they operate in a different way, they are different, although not lesser.”
“Finally, I want to reiterate my firm conviction that precisely because we are facing the literal burning of our world, it is not only worthwhile but essential to align ourselves with those who fight for a more just society from wherever they do it and that in that fight it is necessary to recover more than the notion of justice, the justice of the other, of the poor, of the excluded, of those abandoned to hell, of this savage capitalism that can and must end once and for all.”
With this honor, the National University of Rosario acknowledges not only Calveiro’s distinguished academic career but also reaffirms its historical commitment to memory, democracy, and critical reflection on the recent past.
Journalist: Victoria Arrabal/Photographer: Camila Casero
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