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Reading as Witnessing: a discussion of the emotional impact of Yiddish personal narratives of trauma

Tue, December 18, 8:30 to 10:00am, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Cambridge 2

Abstract

This paper considers the emotional response of readers to personal narratives of trauma, conversing with current Jewish Studies interest in autobiographies and the role of emotion in Jewish life. Personal narratives, including autobiographical writings, create a sense of intimacy between the author/protagonist and reader as the reader enters the private space of the author’s life. This intimacy, in turn, creates an emotional connection between the reader and the author/protagonist. In the case of personal narratives that relate traumatic experiences, these emotions often include a sense of responsibility on the part of the audience to testify, to spread awareness of the trauma, in some way. In my paper I will consider Yiddish language narratives describing pogroms and traumatic immigration experiences in order to discuss this complicated emotional relationship. My analysis will specifically focus on the reader response of “witnessing”, as used by Andrew C. Sparkes in his discussion of autoethnography. My discussion will refer to folkloristic and ethnographic discussions of empathy and witnessing vis-à-vis personal narratives, such as Amy Shuman’s OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES (2005). I will argue that the authors of personal narratives of trauma evince an emotional response in their readers, turning their readers into witnesses at a distance and requiring them to attest to the traumatic experience.

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