Grammars of Addressing: On Memory and History in Cathy Caruth’s Work

Grammars of Listening: Or On the Difficulty of Rendering Trauma Audible

“…Trauma, on the other hand, needs to be addressed as a singular type of experience, resulting from but not reduced to these effects. The voice coming out of trauma is one capable of producing, while also demanding, its own grammars in order to be rendered audible and communicable (see Caruth, 1996, Martínez Ruiz, 2020, and Acosta López, 2021b. Now, if we take seriously the effects that trauma has on whomever survives it (i), and if we take up as a responsibility the task of understanding not only the damage trauma causes, but the form meaning might take as a result of its effects (iii), then a philosophical perspective on the question of listening in traumatic contexts (iii) leads to the need for a critical analysis of the criteria and conditions of possibility for becoming audible.…”

“…Trauma, on the other hand, needs to be addressed as a singular type of experience, resulting from but not reduced to these effects. The voice coming out of trauma is one capable of producing, while also demanding, its own grammars in order to be rendered audible and communicable (see Caruth, 1996, Martínez Ruiz, 2020, and Acosta López, 2021b).…”