Conference Review
Other People's Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethics
Friday, 19 March 2010 to Saturday, 20 March 2010
When Professor Susana Onega and several other speakers asked for a CRASSH coffee mug to take home as a keepsake, we realized that the conference at CRASSH did not only go well in the eyes of the organizers, but established a lasting dialogue between all participants. CRASSH, this ‘busy crossroads of exchange, circulation, ideas’, as Homi K. Bhabha described it at another event, had again proven to be the perfect home for a multidisciplinary conference.
The conference set out to address some of the core issues that the arts, social sciences and humanities seek to address: narrative, ethics – and the category of 'the other'. The question of how to approach other people’s pain inevitably draws attention to the ethical dimension involved in appropriately acknowledging narrative representations of violence and terror while avoiding an appropriation of the traumatic experiences themselves. The question of how to do justice to the other’s pain and trauma as represented in literary and poetic expression, memorial sites, philosophical and theoretical accounts, legal, theological and academic discourses themselves calls for an academic response that reaches beyond the limits of disciplinary discourse.
The objective of ‘Other People’s Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethics’, held at CRASSH on 19 and 20 March 2010, was not to find a definite and infallible answer, but - as Martin Modlinger pointed out during his introduction - to participate in an international and interdisciplinary dialogue that would enable us to ‘ask better and more precise questions’. Andrew Webber, acting director of CRASSH, remarked in his welcome speech that ‘this is exactly the kind of event we want to see at CRASSH’; the financial and administrative support of CRASSH was vital in the success of ‘Other People’s Pain’. The event was further made possible by the generous support and funding from the Ethics of Textual Cultures Graduate Programme at the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Augsburg, the Tiarks Fund of the Department of German and Dutch (Cambridge), and the Gates Cambridge Trust.
This international and interdisciplinary conference gathered twelve speakers and forty-five participants for two days of stimulating discussion about ethical considerations in literary, legal, artistic, theological and memorialized representations of trauma and posttraumatic experiences. Senior and junior scholars in fields ranging from German, French, English and American studies to divinity, Pan African studies, international law, film studies and sociology were represented. The organizers Christopher Geissler (Cambridge), Martin Modlinger (Cambridge) and Philipp Sonntag (Erlangen-Nuremberg) welcomed speakers and participants to Cambridge from the UK, Germany, Spain and the United States.
The conference began with a paper by Professor Colin Davis (Royal Holloway) that examined, from a self-reflexive and theoretical point of view, the scholar’s emotional and empathic personal involvement in dealing with other people’s pain. This issue proved to be paradigmatic for the discussions over the course of the two days. Dr Antje du Bois-Pedain (Cambridge) dealt with transitional justice in South Africa and the interaction of legal accountability mechanisms and personal accounts of traumatic experience, providing valuable insight into the work and difficulties of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The interrelationship of individual and cultural trauma was further investigated by Michael Sauter (Augsburg), who discussed the cultural and ethical implications of the fiction of Cormack McCarthy. Martin Modlinger (Cambridge) posed the question of how fictional and non-fictional trauma narratives differ or interrelate in his examination of W. G. Sebald’s fictional account of the authentic life story of Susi Bechhöfer, who has written about the loss of her name, memory and personal identity as an evacuee in the Kindertransport. The increasing amount of trauma fiction in contemporary American literature, which draws less on the Shoah as a founding event of trauma narrative in the 20th century and more on the traumata of sexual abuse or terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, was discussed in the papers of Professor Hubert Zapf (Augsburg) and Professor Rudolf Freiburg (Erlangen-Nuremberg). While Zapf gave an overview of contemporary trauma fiction and its relation to various forms of historical trauma, Freiburg provided an in-depth analysis of Philip Roth’s fiction, presenting personal and collective trauma as a state of normalcy in American history, culture and society. The first day of the conference closed with the keynote delivered by Professor Susana Onega (Zaragoza), which provided attendees with an exposition of the theoretical, political and social background of the rise of medical and cultural concepts of trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma studies and theory in the academy. Onega advanced an argument about the need to more carefully navigate the differences between moral and ethical responses to the pain of others. Her keynote lecture highlighted the central theme of debate in most of the delivered papers and discussions: the tensions between representation and assimilation of ‘other people’s pain’.
The second day of the conference opened with a paper by Professor Bettina Bannasch (Munich) on the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Herta Müller. Her talk analysed Müller’s fictional account of the life of Oscar Pastior in relation to other literary texts dealing with imprisonment, forced labour and camp life during and after WWII. Touching on familiar topoi of Shoah literature, Bannasch examined how Müller narrates the pain and trauma of her ‘co-author’, who did not live to complete the writing of his life story himself. The powerful opening session was followed by a further analysis of the ethical dimension of testimonies of traumatic experiences, especially those related to the Shoah, delivered by Professor Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway). Eaglestone once again returned to the notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, which featured in the contributions by Davis and Onega, exploring the epistemological and ethical shock of the Shoah and the politics of identity involved in dealing with other people’s pain. A theological perspective on the problematic nature of ungraspable pain and violence was provided by Dr Margie TolstoyDr Zoe Norridge (Oxford) and David MwambariNorridge presented parts of her ongoing research project on literature and memorial sites in Rwanda, exploring academic and literary reactions to the use of human remains as memorials at a massacre site in Murambi. Raising an awareness for the ‘othering’ of the Rwandan culture of memory in western discourse, Norridge’s paper explored the question of authentic and possible representation of other people’s pain, adding an essential perspective to the conference as a whole. The final presentation by Mwambari provided insight into the ‘cracks of memory’ and the ethical issues involved in narrating trauma of young adults in post-conflict Africa. The presentation was complemented by a powerful lyrical performance inspired by Mwambari’s personal traumatic experiences during the Rwandan genocide. This highly personal performance stressed the merit of aesthetic expression in dealing with pain and trauma and provided a thought-provoking closing of the conference. (Cambridge), who highlighted the tradition of theodicy as an explanatory device in Christian theology. The strong focus on Holocaust studies in the first part of the second day was balanced by the closing panel on post-genocide Rwanda, featuring (Syracuse). The panel provided a most valuable perspective on the contemporary situation of a posttraumatic society and its cultural expression, which is often marginalized in predominantly western academic discourse.
The conference set out to address some of the core issues that the arts, social sciences and humanities seek to address: narrative, ethics – and the category of 'the other'. The question of how to approach other people’s pain inevitably draws attention to the ethical dimension involved in appropriately acknowledging narrative representations of violence and terror while avoiding an appropriation of the traumatic experiences themselves. The question of how to do justice to the other’s pain and trauma as represented in literary and poetic expression, memorial sites, philosophical and theoretical accounts, legal, theological and academic discourses themselves calls for an academic response that reaches beyond the limits of disciplinary discourse.
The objective of ‘Other People’s Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethics’, held at CRASSH on 19 and 20 March 2010, was not to find a definite and infallible answer, but - as Martin Modlinger pointed out during his introduction - to participate in an international and interdisciplinary dialogue that would enable us to ‘ask better and more precise questions’. Andrew Webber, acting director of CRASSH, remarked in his welcome speech that ‘this is exactly the kind of event we want to see at CRASSH’; the financial and administrative support of CRASSH was vital in the success of ‘Other People’s Pain’. The event was further made possible by the generous support and funding from the Ethics of Textual Cultures Graduate Programme at the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Augsburg, the Tiarks Fund of the Department of German and Dutch (Cambridge), and the Gates Cambridge Trust.
This international and interdisciplinary conference gathered twelve speakers and forty-five participants for two days of stimulating discussion about ethical considerations in literary, legal, artistic, theological and memorialized representations of trauma and posttraumatic experiences. Senior and junior scholars in fields ranging from German, French, English and American studies to divinity, Pan African studies, international law, film studies and sociology were represented. The organizers Christopher Geissler (Cambridge), Martin Modlinger (Cambridge) and Philipp Sonntag (Erlangen-Nuremberg) welcomed speakers and participants to Cambridge from the UK, Germany, Spain and the United States.
The conference began with a paper by Professor Colin Davis (Royal Holloway) that examined, from a self-reflexive and theoretical point of view, the scholar’s emotional and empathic personal involvement in dealing with other people’s pain. This issue proved to be paradigmatic for the discussions over the course of the two days. Dr Antje du Bois-Pedain (Cambridge) dealt with transitional justice in South Africa and the interaction of legal accountability mechanisms and personal accounts of traumatic experience, providing valuable insight into the work and difficulties of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The interrelationship of individual and cultural trauma was further investigated by Michael Sauter (Augsburg), who discussed the cultural and ethical implications of the fiction of Cormack McCarthy. Martin Modlinger (Cambridge) posed the question of how fictional and non-fictional trauma narratives differ or interrelate in his examination of W. G. Sebald’s fictional account of the authentic life story of Susi Bechhöfer, who has written about the loss of her name, memory and personal identity as an evacuee in the Kindertransport. The increasing amount of trauma fiction in contemporary American literature, which draws less on the Shoah as a founding event of trauma narrative in the 20th century and more on the traumata of sexual abuse or terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, was discussed in the papers of Professor Hubert Zapf (Augsburg) and Professor Rudolf Freiburg (Erlangen-Nuremberg). While Zapf gave an overview of contemporary trauma fiction and its relation to various forms of historical trauma, Freiburg provided an in-depth analysis of Philip Roth’s fiction, presenting personal and collective trauma as a state of normalcy in American history, culture and society. The first day of the conference closed with the keynote delivered by Professor Susana Onega (Zaragoza), which provided attendees with an exposition of the theoretical, political and social background of the rise of medical and cultural concepts of trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma studies and theory in the academy. Onega advanced an argument about the need to more carefully navigate the differences between moral and ethical responses to the pain of others. Her keynote lecture highlighted the central theme of debate in most of the delivered papers and discussions: the tensions between representation and assimilation of ‘other people’s pain’.
The second day of the conference opened with a paper by Professor Bettina Bannasch (Munich) on the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Herta Müller. Her talk analysed Müller’s fictional account of the life of Oscar Pastior in relation to other literary texts dealing with imprisonment, forced labour and camp life during and after WWII. Touching on familiar topoi of Shoah literature, Bannasch examined how Müller narrates the pain and trauma of her ‘co-author’, who did not live to complete the writing of his life story himself. The powerful opening session was followed by a further analysis of the ethical dimension of testimonies of traumatic experiences, especially those related to the Shoah, delivered by Professor Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway). Eaglestone once again returned to the notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, which featured in the contributions by Davis and Onega, exploring the epistemological and ethical shock of the Shoah and the politics of identity involved in dealing with other people’s pain. A theological perspective on the problematic nature of ungraspable pain and violence was provided by Dr Margie TolstoyDr Zoe Norridge (Oxford) and David MwambariNorridge presented parts of her ongoing research project on literature and memorial sites in Rwanda, exploring academic and literary reactions to the use of human remains as memorials at a massacre site in Murambi. Raising an awareness for the ‘othering’ of the Rwandan culture of memory in western discourse, Norridge’s paper explored the question of authentic and possible representation of other people’s pain, adding an essential perspective to the conference as a whole. The final presentation by Mwambari provided insight into the ‘cracks of memory’ and the ethical issues involved in narrating trauma of young adults in post-conflict Africa. The presentation was complemented by a powerful lyrical performance inspired by Mwambari’s personal traumatic experiences during the Rwandan genocide. This highly personal performance stressed the merit of aesthetic expression in dealing with pain and trauma and provided a thought-provoking closing of the conference. (Cambridge), who highlighted the tradition of theodicy as an explanatory device in Christian theology. The strong focus on Holocaust studies in the first part of the second day was balanced by the closing panel on post-genocide Rwanda, featuring (Syracuse). The panel provided a most valuable perspective on the contemporary situation of a posttraumatic society and its cultural expression, which is often marginalized in predominantly western academic discourse.
In his closing remarks, Christopher Geissler expressed his conviction that the conversations and debates engaged in over the course of the two days would continue in the future in other fora. This has been echoed by others in the time since the conference and such work is underway. In addition to most of the presented papers, additional solicited contributions will be included in an edited volume to be published at a major academic press. Furthermore a group has begun work on creating an interdisciplinary European research network which will extend the impetus of the discussions at CRASSH to prospective workshops, conferences and published work.
Philipp Sonntag
(Ethik der Textkulturen,
University of Erlangen, Germany)
