Reconciling Community and Subjective Life : Trauma Testimony as Political Theorizing in the Work of Jean Amery and Imre Kertesz

This is an examination of the difficult interplay between the collective pursuit of justice and reconciliation on one hand and the individual subjective experience of trauma on the other, proposing that it be thought as a potentially productive tension. To do so, Zolkos looks at how texts from Jean Amry and Imre Kertsz speak to the question of the politics of the past and, ultimately, to the post-foundational notions of community and justice. The text works with issues of reconciliation at a theoretical level that bring together insights from political theory, trauma studies, holocaust studies, history and literary theory. The book has the greatest relevance for the critical reconciliation theory, as well as for those working on the concept of community within the continental tradition.

Magdalena Zolkos is research fellow in political theory at the Center for Citizenship and Public Policy, University of Western Sydney. She has published on issues of reconciliation, collective trauma, community and testimony.