Trauma and Ethics

Abstract

Trauma studies raises, but does not always give satisfactory answers, to ethical issues concerning, for example, secondary trauma and the academic discussion of testimonial texts. The first chapter in the section discusses work by Felman and Agamben, especially the latter’s highly problematic appropriation of the figure of the Muselmann; and it looks at the work of Charlotte Delbo, the deportee and survivor who takes the risk of speaking for the other despite the ethical pitfalls that this involves.