Memory and History from Past to Future: A Dialogue with Dori Laub on Trauma and Testimony

Abstract

World-renowned psychoanalyst-psychiatrist Dori Laub, in conversation with historian Federico Finchelstein, discuss the central scholarly debates on Holocaust memory, trauma and testimony that were foundational not only to the field of Holocaust studies and the relatively new field of memory studies, but also impacted much of the historical, juridical, political and philosophical scholarship, practice and policy produced and enacted since that pivotal event changed the world forever.1 In a conversation held and recorded specifically for this volume, Laub and Finchelstein examine the changing role and position of survivors’ testimony in public debates as a link between past and future, while moving beyond the assumed tension between their respective disciplines: psychoanalysis and history. Testimony highlights many of the key questions about the role and importance of the future in memory studies, such as the movement between personal trauma and healing, collective responsibility and juridical justice, and atrocious pasts and more peaceful futures. The growing legitimacy of victims’ testimonies in the public sphere that Laub and Finchelstein trace is an avenue for future research which is at the core of the field of memory studies.