Testimonial Montage

Sheila Jelen's Testimonial Montage is a pathbreaking contribution to literary and narratological approaches to testimony. Jelen demonstrates how techniques of close reading can be made productive for the analysis of survivor testimonies, while still maintaining an appreciation for the dignity and integrity of the survivor's performance of the role of witness. A specific set of testimonies is interpreted in an exemplary manner, reading them both as individual performances of memory while also acknowledging the shared context of their production. Testimonial Montage proposes an ethics of critical but respectful, open-ended but rigorous reading that should resonate widely amongst scholars of testimony. --Peter Davies, University of Edinburgh Sheila Jelen skillfully and sensitively creates a compelling intertextuality between testimonies given by the same group of people at different times, for different purposes, and in different formats. She develops a fascinating close reading of this 'family of testimonies' as literary palimpsests that invite her readers to engage deeply with the people, the historical and continuing trauma, the events, and the past and present contexts of witnessing. --Hannah Holtschneider, University of Edinburgh, UK