The Rhetoric of Witnessing: Political Address, Historical Justice, and Commemoration of Traumatic Events

Vivian and Arel examine witnessing as a rhetorical act in widely studied modern forms. The chapter presumes that acts of witnessing often convey past personal experiences or the putative lessons of history to entire communities. Vivian and Arel explain how people and institutions use the language of witnessing to shape interpretations of the past; promote social, political, or ethical agendas following historic events; recommend therapeutic responses to historical traumas; or advocate competing narratives about shared experiences. The chapter documents the rhetoric of witnessing not in any ideal circumstance, but by showing how different subjects articulate it for various reasons across changing mediums and contexts. Influential examples include bearing witness to infamous injustices, to individual or collective trauma, as a mode of post-conflict political address, and in memorial or museum spaces.