Writing History, Writing Trauma

Abstract

What does the writing of history have to do with the writing of trauma? How write an experience that defies representation? Are certain forms of inquiry and representation better suited to the transmission of trauma than others? How can a historical writing of trauma attest to the specificity of a past event while attending to its ongoing reverberation in the present? These are some of the questions examined in Dominick LaCapra's Writing History, Writing Trauma. As the comma between them suggests, writing history (writing about the past) and writing trauma (conveying that past's resistance to writing) are not incompatible representational practices, even if they have been traditionally opposed as the dichotomy between history and literature, historicism and psychoanalysis or historiography and literary criticism. LaCapra instead proposes to weave a dialogue between, on the one hand, traditionally historicist approaches to the past invested in truth claims, propositional contents and reference, and, on the other, postmodern, psychoanalytically informed approaches characterized by transference, performativity and aporia. Rather than seeking a compromise between "writing history" and "writing trauma," LaCapra rethinks these terms in order to envision a hybrid historical practice attuned to the affective, literary and experiential dimensions of history, while also remaining mindful of regulative ideals, sociopolitical agency and the claims of reference.

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