A complex portrait of postdictatorial Chile by one of that country's most incisive cultural critics, this book uses memoirs, photographs, the plastic arts, novels, and other texts—the "residues" of a culture—to analyze the political-cultural Chilean landscape in the wake of Augusto Pinochet's seventeen-year military rule. Such residual areas reveal the flaws and lapses in Chile's transition from violent military dictatorship to electoral democracy.

Nelly Richard's analysis ranges from an exploration of false memories of the recent past—especially memories of violence—to a discussion of the university under neoliberalism; from debates about the use of the word "gender" to an examination of refractory texts and cultural activities such as Diamela Eltit's "testimonio" of a schizophrenic vagabond, Eugenio Dittborn's use of photography in art installations, and transvestite performances. In Cultural Residues, each instance becomes a suggestive metaphor for understanding a rapidly modernizing Chile attempting to re-democratize its public life.