Speaking about Torture

"The newspapers can tell us what causes torture, but not about what it means for our lives. This collection does just that. Beyond the apology for torture, the cries for trials, the sad litany of horrors, these authors turn to art, writing, memory and witnessing - the real means by which we can care for ourselves in the face of a disturbing past and an uncertain future. Readers travel from the Iraqi poets of Abu Ghraib to the visions of the Iranian prison of Kahrizak, from the cinematic images of the past to the playlists on your ipod, and ultimately circle back to Jean Amery's portentous reminder that after torture, we will always have to work to be at home in our world." -- -Darius Rejali Reed College "This richly variegated volume gathers together bracing and often brilliant analyses of matters one wishes were not so timely: the practices of torture and how people speak, lie, and obfuscate about them. It opens our eyes and keeps them open wide." -- -Ian Balfour York University "A rich collection of essays which should appeal to a wide audience of scholars and students from the humanities and social sciences. Due to its very accessible style it may also be of interest to the general public interested in contemporary American politics." -- -Vanessa Lemm Institute of Humanities at the Universidad Diego Portales "Given on-going attempts to legitimate and normalize torture, this rich and varied collection opens new perspectives of engagement. Its contributors disrupt smug euphemisms and bear witness to the horrifying damage torture inflicts, annihilating flesh, intimacy, trust, and memory. With readings ranging from the memoirs of Holocaust survivors to the photographs of Abu Ghraib and beyond, scholars of the law, media, literature, history, philosophy, music and the visual arts show how critical work in the arts and humanities can, and must, take part in the struggle against torture's banalization." -- -Page DuBois University of San Diego

Elisabeth Weber is a professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her books include Verfolgung und Trauma: Zu Emmanuel Levinas Autrement qutre ou au-del de lessence (Passagen Verlag, 1990), Das Vergessen(e): Anamnesen des Undarstellbaren, coeditor (Turia and Kant, 1997), and Questioning Judaism (Stanford, 2004), a collection of interviews with Jacques Derrida, Jean-Franois Lyotard, Emmanuel Levinas, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, and others. She has also edited several works by Jacques Derrida. Her edited volume Living Together: Jacques Derridas Communities of Violence and Peace is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.

Introduction Julie Carlson and Elisabeth Weber: For the Humanities I. America Tortures Lisa Hajjar: An Assault on Truth: A Chronology of Torture, Deception and Denial Alfred McCoy: In the Minotaur's Labyrinth: Psychological Torture, Public Forgetting, and Contested History II. Singularities of Witness Reinhold Gorling: Torture and society (translated from German by Glenn Patten) Susan Derwin: What Nazi Crimes Against Humanity Can Tell us about Torture Today Elisabeth Weber: "Torture was the essence of National Socialism". Reading Jean Amery today Sinan Antoon: What did the Corpse Want? Torture in Poetry III. Graphic Assaults, Sensory Overload John Nava: Thoughts on the making of "Signing Statement Law or An Alternate Set of Procedures" ("America tortures") and "Our Torture is Better than Their Torture" Abigail Solomon-Godeau: Torture and Representation: The Art of Detournement Stephen Eisenman: Water-boarding -- A Torture both Intimate and Sacred Hamid Dabashi: Damnatio Memoriae Viola Shafik: Rituals of Hegemonic Masculinity: Cinema, Torture and the Middle East Peter Szendy: Music and torture: the stigmata of sound and sense (translated from French by Allison Schifani and Zeke Sikelianos) Christian Gruny: The language of feeling made into a weapon. Music as an instrument of torture IV. Declassifying Writing Julie Carlson: Romantic Poet Legislators: The Ends of Torture Darieck Scott: The fine details: Torture and the Social Order Colin Dayan: Reasonable Torture, or the Sanctities (Gaza, September 2009) Richard Falk: John Yoo, the Torture Memos, and Ward Churchill: Exploring the Outer Limits of Academic Freedom