Abstract
Due to the crisis of historical representation in the field of historiography in the mid-to-late twentieth century, Dominick LaCapra, an important thinker of “trauma theory,” puts the traditional methodology in historiography into question and reconstructs possibilities in historical writing by proposing to break traditional disciplinary boundaries and promote dialogues between history and psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy as well as ethics. From an interdisciplinary perspective, LaCapra explores the aesthetics of “negative sublime” and types of trauma in extreme events, and proposes the theory of “writing trauma” through combining speech act theory and ethics. As a kind of acting-out of the historical trauma, “writing trauma” speaks to and negotiates with the repressed historical consciousness through performative language. It is a poetic “speech act” that serves to work through the historical trauma. Setting aside the objective standard of “representing reality” in historical writing, “writing trauma” integrates historical and literary elements on the ethical level, thus becoming a cultural practice with social ethical significance. LaCapra’s thoughts on history, trauma and literature are of great significance for the study of relevant topics in contemporary literary theory.
First Page
129
Last Page
138
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Peng. 2021. "History, Trauma, and Literature: Dominick LaCapra’s Theory of “Writing Trauma” and Its Ethical Significance." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 41, (6): pp.129-138. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol41/iss6/8
