Saidiya Hartman and the Existential and Educational Challenge of Bearing Witness to Slavery's Afterlife

• In Event: Bearing Witness and the Ethics of Care

Abstract

This presentation seeks to illuminate the value to educational inquiry and practice of Saidiya Hartman’s innovative approach to bearing witness to slavery’s aftermath in the United States. Hartman sheds light on core ethical and epistemic constituents of witnessing. She shows how challenging it can be to enact them in the face of traumatic events yet to be fully reckoned with. In so doing, Hartman provides not a model or blueprint for others to follow, but a role model of what bearing witness can look like in the concrete. I argue that her exemplary witness points to valuable ways of cultivating moral consciousness and remembrance in schools and universities, while also providing fellow scholars an enlightening instance of ethical inquiry.

Author

• David T. Hansen, Teachers College, Columbia University