Overview

The nineteenth century was a time of extraordinary attunement to the unspoken, the elusively present, and the subtly haunting. Quiet Testimony finds in such attunement a valuable rethinking of what it means to encounter the truth. It argues that four key writers-Emerson, Douglass, Melville, and Henry James-open up the domain of the witness by articulating quietude's claim on the clamoring world. The premise of quiet testimony responds to urgent questions in critical theory and human rights. Emerson is brought into conversation with Levinas, and Douglass is considered alongside Agamben. Yet the book is steeped in the intellectual climate of the nineteenth century, in which speech and meaning might exceed the bounds of the recognized human subject. In this context, Melville's characters could read the weather, and James's could spend an evening with dead companions. By following the path by which ostensibly unremarkable entities come to voice, Quiet Testimony suggests new configurations for ethics, politics, and the literary.

Full Product Details

9780823254774

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Reviews

GCGBPThis is a major and exemplary work that deftly situates the authors in their historical situations while at the same time deeply respecting their thinking, reading them in order to adduce their complicated attitudes toward testimony, which Goldberg successfully advances as an urgent and central issue for each of them.GC[yen] GCoMitchell Breitwieser, University of California, Berkeley This well-researched, theory-driven essay book is repetitious and abstract but offers beautifully phrased sentences. -Choice

This well-researched, theory-driven essay book is repetitious and abstract but offers beautifully phrased sentences. -Choice

Author Information

Shari Goldberg is Assistant Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.

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