The juridical unconscious: trials and traumas in the twentieth century

Abstract

Felman, Shoshana. The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. 253pp. $19.95 paperback. The twentieth writes Shoshana Felman at opening of her precisely written and subtly argued book, The juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in Twentieth Century, in effect a century of traumas and (concurrently) a century of theories of (1). It was also a century of trials-indeed, it was a century of of Every decade seemed to bring a new of century, from trial of labor leader Big Bill Haywood of 1907 to Clinton impeachment trial of 1999. In The juridical Unconscious, Felman brings together these two marked characteristics of twentieth examining complex and often-invisible links between traumas and trials. Felman casts a broad and bold argument that could easily have become overwhelming for her and her readers, but she wisely contains and sharpens her argument by choosing to concentrate on two specific of century: 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann and 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson. She argues persuasively that these two trials, though occurring in very different historical, cultural and legal contexts, share a structural similarity that makes them paradigmatic cases for thinking through connections between trials and traumas in twentieth century. Both trials, Felman argues, began as simple processes of litigation and controversies over legal issues, but quickly evolved into veritable theaters of justice (4). The chief characteristic that these two trials share is that both revolve around and move between two separate poles of private trauma and collective trauma (6). The Eichmann trial began as a case that dealt with a collective crime and collective trauma and evolved into a case that opened up a new way of dealing legally with private traumas. The Simpson trial reversed this process, beginning as a case about a private trauma and evolving into a case about collective traumas. By cleverly placing these two much-discussed trials face-to-face with each other, Felman is able to offer a new perspective on each trial and on relationship between trials and traumas more generally. Felman's theoretical framework continues this process of innovative and illuminating pairing of seemingly different thinkers, placing together Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. Of three, Benjamin is most crucial for Felman's argument. It is his theory of history as trauma and his investigation of process of converting trauma into insight that lie at center of The Juridical Unconscious. Like Benjamin, Felman is concerned with ways in which expression can be given to what Benjamin called the expressionless (das Ausdruckslose). …

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