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Witnessing, testimony and the culture of ‘trauma’

This project aims to examine notions of witnessing and testimony. It is concerned especially with questions of social justice, racism, and antisemitism as they are engaged with, and reflect upon, psychoanalysis. It both uses and challenges current notions of trauma.

PEOPLE INVOLVED

  • Professor Stephen Frosh, Birkbeck, University of London.

RESEARCH AIMS

  • This project aims to:
  • advance understanding of witnessing, testimony and acknowledgement in the psychosocial sphere.
  • critically interrogate psychoanalytic understanding of trauma and testimony, especially with regard to the legacies and continuing realities of racism and antisemitism.

METHODOLOGY

  • This is a primarily theoretical project drawing on psychoanalytic, historical and cultural material.

INDICATIVE PUBLICATIONS

  • Frosh, S. (2021) Psychoanalysis in the Wake. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society.
  • Frosh, S. (2020) Postmemory and Possession. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 33(2), 515-528.
  • Frosh, S. (2020) Psychoanalysis as Decolonial Judaism. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 25(2), 174-193.
  • Frosh, S. (2019) Those who come after: Postmemory, Acknowledgement and Forgiveness. London: Palgrave.
  • Frosh, S. (2019) Postmemory. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 79 (2), 156–173.
  • Frosh, S. (2017) Primitivity and Violence: Traces of the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 37, 34-47.
  • Frosh, S. (2013) Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions. London: Palgrave.