The Care of the Witness
A Contemporary History of Testimony in Crises
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:31st Oct '16
Currently unavailable, currently targeted to be due back around 15th April 2025, but could change
The Care of the Witness explores the historical shifts in the crises of witnessing to genocide, war, and disaster and their contribution to nongovernmental politics.
The Care of the Witness probes the ambiguities of witnessing to genocide, disaster, and war in the 'era of the witness'. This book will appeal to readers interested in collective memory, oral history, and human rights and humanitarian work, as well as in visual culture, political theory and ethics more broadly.During the twentieth century, witnessing grew to be not just a widespread solution for coping with political atrocities but also an intricate problem. As the personal experience of victims, soldiers, and aid workers acquired unparalleled authority as a source of moral and political truth, the capacity to generate adequate testimonies based on this experience was repeatedly called into question. Michal Givoni's book follows the trail of the problems, torments, and crises that became commingled with witnessing to genocide, disaster, and war over the course of the twentieth century. By juxtaposing episodes of reflexive witnessing to the Great War, the Jewish Holocaust, and third world emergencies, The Care of the Witness explores the shifting roles and responsibilities of witnesses in history and the contribution that the troubles of witnessing made to the ethical consolidation of the witness as the leading figure of nongovernmental politics.
'At once thoughtful and provocative, Michal Givoni's The Care of the Witness traces the arteries of testimony that flow through twentieth-century experiences of war, humanitarian action and the Holocaust, exposing them to rigorous analysis. Anyone concerned with the political stakes of contemporary ethical speech should read this book.' Peter Redfield, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
'The great virtue of Michal Givoni is that she combines analytical rigor, a wide range of reference, and a deep historical understanding of witnessing with rhetorical delicacy and ethical purpose. Her book is as important for its tone and moral seriousness as it is for its very considerable academic contributions.' Thomas W. Laqueur, University of California, Berkeley
'It is nearly impossible to imagine politics today without witnesses and testimonies, writes Michal Givoni. And, they have fundamentally transformed what we mean by ethics after Auschwitz. However, her breathtaking book shows us how little we have really understood these upheavals. Virtually everything we thought we knew about them now needs to be rethought. Patiently reading her way through a rich theoretical and practical corpus, Givoni takes us from World War I through the Holocaust to Doctors without Borders and social media today, and demonstrates how we might approach witnessing and testimony in a genuinely critical manner - which is to say, to take them seriously, for ethics and for politics.' Thomas Keenan, Director of the Human Rights Project, Bard College, New York
ISBN: 9781107150942
Dimensions: 234mm x 159mm x 18mm
Weight: 500g
250 pages