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Title: The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century by Shoshana Felman ISBN: 0-674-00951-7 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.50

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: interesting and important, but not that new
Comment: Felman's new book is a significant contribution to the contemporary questioning of trials and witnessing, and carries on her line of thought on testimony from her work of recent years, particularly from the book on testimony that she co-authored with Dori Laub. In the contemporary fascination with memory politics and the role of trials in the twentieth century, it marks a welcome addition, but one that has to be read critically nonetheless.

Felman insists that the failure of testimony plays a constitutive role in testimony per se. The argument holds well throughout the book, even if its logic is downright maddening and at times rather moralizing (simplifying an objection to the extreme: why should the witness who doesn't fail, or the trial that is not marked by an expression of trauma, by qualitatively less significant than those who do?). The highlight of the work is the chapter on Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem, which indeed forms an important counterpart to the reading Arendt's own text. The essay on Benjamin is far less innovative or remarkable, but it is nonetheless worth reading as an attempt by Felman to approach the contemporary Benjamin debates from this line of questioning.

Among the lowest and least necessary points of the book is Felman's ferocious 5-page endnote #2 on Ruth Leys' criticism of Felman's friend Caruth. The note is itself almost worth the price of the book as an indication of how intelligent intellectuals will get personal and loud when they lack substantial arguments. This certainly does not speak well of the professionalism of the Caruth/Felman argument on trauma.

On its own, this book is primarily interesting as an extension of Felman's earlier work. In both the readings of Arendt and Leys, the reader is advised to contrast their texts to Felman's own. Accordingly, the book is at its best when read in contrast to opposing positions. Still, it is not clear whether those who already dislike Felman and Caruth's approach to trauma will be moved. Thus, the problem with the "Juridical Unconscious" is that it adheres to an all-too-easily identifiable line of argument, which it articulates over and over and over. The argument is useful, but hardly so important as to be exhaustive of the intricacies of contemporary trials.

Rating: 5
Summary: Very interesting
Comment: Shoshana Felman's eloquent writing and her excellent choice of sources to quote made this a great book. I would especially recommend reading it in conjunction with Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" because Felman refers to Arendt's arguments frequently, offering a fresh perspective.

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