Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History
Felman, Shoshana and Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Abingdon: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 1992. Print book.
This landmark text, in both the fields of Memory and Holocaust Studies, names the Holocaust as specifically a crisis of witnessing: an event which silences not only as traumatic, but also as one which systematically “eliminat[es] its own witnesses”. Each author works towards this conclusion through alternating reflections from their respective disciplines: by engaging both literary and clinical resources, they thoroughly investigate the relation of story and event present in the act of testimony. Ultimately, Felman and Laub work through the testimonies of survivors to present a robust "theory of witnessing”.