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SUMMARY:Other People's Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethi
 cs -  CRASSH
DTSTART:20100319T103000Z
DTEND:20100319T210000Z
UID:TALK23232@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Daniel Jonah Wolpert
DESCRIPTION:Other People's Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of 
 Ethics\n%{color:red}Friday\, 19 March to Saturday\, 20 March%\nLocation: C
 RASSH\, 17 Mill Lane\, Cambridge\n\nhttp://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/115
 4/\n\n\n|Works of art — from Primo Levi’s If this is a Man to Anselm K
 iefer’s Margarethe — are built up out of the destruction of human life
  and dignity. Drawing specifically on the horrors of history\, they come 
 to haunt us and question our understanding of the past\, of ethics\, even 
 of the idea of ‘knowing’ itself. Yet\, what is it exactly that these w
 orks of art can achieve? Medicine is able to heal or alleviate suffering 
 through the work of professionals observing\, testing\, and writing about 
 patients’ physical and psychological pain. Human rights activists craft 
 testimonies with the echoes of the victims’ howling cries\; lawyers draf
 t national and international laws and resolutions with a history of persec
 ution\, war\, and genocide foremost in mind.\n\n|What are the implications
  of the meeting with violence and terror in scholarly engagement with text
 s of trauma? In which ways can art\, literature and disciplines like medic
 ine\, psychology\, sociology and law inform each other? All of these engag
 ements seem to share a fundamental divide between the experience of the vi
 ctim\, the traumatic event itself\, and the scrutinizing gaze of those who
  address it. How then are personal or collective traumatic experiences\, m
 aybe even the very ‘idea’ of violence\, pain and terror\, comprehended
  via narrative transmission?\n\nDrawing upon other people’s pain to do t
 heir work\, where do we discover the limits of the attempts to represent t
 he events in their historical\, biological\, emotional\, and political rea
 lities? In what ways do cultural manifestations of trauma\, violence and t
 error — through textual\, visual\, political\, medical or scientific me
 dia — reflect on the ethical implications of the project? Assuming the 
 work of these fields is to enact transcendence of the trauma\, terror\, a
 nd violence\, at least by humanity as a whole if not for the original vict
 ims\, those ‘other people’\, in what ways are these works moral agents
 ? If we believe in the value of our transcendence of other people’s pain
 \, the end products seem to never be sullied themselves by the process tha
 t provided the material for their eventual coming into being. Or are they?
  \n\n|When we construct narratives of trauma\, what are the obligations an
 d what are the dangers? Where does exploitation begin? Can appropriation o
 f other people's pain ever occur without exploitation to some degree? Can 
 works based on other people’s pain turn into sources of abuse\, exploita
 tion\, and structural violence themselves?
LOCATION:CRASSH\, 17 Mill Lane\, Cambridge CB2 1RX
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