Between marginalization and decentralization of memory: Peripheral palimpsests in post-dictatorship Buenos Aires and Montevideo Cara Levey Abstract Tirty years after the Argentine and Uruguayan dictatorships ended, the ways in which the past is addressed remains contentious. In 2010, controversy erupted over the cover up of the Memorial de los Detenidos Desaparecidos during an advertising shoot for Sprite in Montevideo. In neighbouring Buenos Aires, work on the Monumento a las Víctimas del Terrorismo de Estado was stalled in 2001 over lack of funding and again in 2008 over salary disputes. Tis article explores these ‘intentional’ monuments as examples of the palimpsest. First, in spite of their intended purpose, these memorials are subject to diferent readings treatment and threats over time. Second, the urban settings of such memorials may be viewed as palimpsests, because the choice of location facilitates diferent readings of the memorials themselves. Analysis of their palimpsestic features reveals the myriad ways in which the past is addressed, elucidating site-specifc and general concerns about post-dictatorship memory-making. Keywords: Argentina, cities, memorials, memory studies, post-dictatorship, Uruguay Tere is nothing in the world as invisible as a monument. Robert Musil (quoted in Young 1993: 13) Tree decades after the end of dictatorial rule in Argentina (1976–1983) and Uruguay (1973–1985), 1 the ways in which the past is addressed remain the subject of considerable contestation. In 2010, during the flming of an advertisement for the soft drink Sprite, the Memorial de los Detenidos Desaparecidos [Memorial to Disappeared Detainees], hereafter the Memorial, was covered up by the production company, temporarily ‘disappearing’ the names inscribed on its glass walls. In neighbouring Argentina, work on the Monumento a las Victimas del Terrorismo de Estado [Monument to the Victims of State Terrorism], hereafter the Monumento, housed at the Parque de la Memoria [Memory Park], stalled in 2001 over funding issues when Argentina was plunged into one of the worst economic and social crises in its history and in 2008, the park was closed as the guides went on strike over lack of pay in a dispute with the local government (this issue came to the fore again in January 2014, when park personnel were allegedly denied an annual pay increment). I consider these episodes and the surrounding debates as ‘irruptions of memory’ 2 (Wilde 1999), which throw into relief the threats to memorialization over time, long after the construction of a memorial or monument. Indeed, in Argentina, park staf Journal of Romance Studies Volume 14 Number 3, Winter 2014: 67–85 doi:10.3167/jrs.2014.140306 ISSN 1473–3536 (Print), ISSN 1752–2331 (Online)