Publisher's Synopsis
This book offers a complex and thought-provoking anthology of critical essays respecting the notion of the witness and phenomena of witnessing in Western culture since the Holocaust. 'Witness' presents a new body of work in the field by an international collective of scholars concerned with resituating witnessing in its specifically contemporary problematic. This volume thus not only establishes links with existing, currently canonical contributions to witness literature -- from Primo Levi through Victor Klemperer to Imre Kertész -- it also goes on to provide a set of analyses of exemplary and very recent literary works in that area. Most significantly, Witness extends and changes the previous scholarly tendency to focus strongly on historical evidence and the witness' vocalisation of true remembrance so as to include difficult theoretical and interpretative questions posed by studies today of traumatic experience, amnesia, visual culture, new media, and technology. Amongst others, the book includes contributions from the acclaimed Romanian-German author Herta Müller, and such an internationally recognised scholar in trauma studies as Cathy Caruth.
