Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma

by Ulrich Baer

An original analysis of the parallels between the arrested moment in photography and in the traumatized psyche. In this remarkable contribution to photographic criticism and psychoanalytic literature, Ulrich Baer traces the hitherto overlooked connection between the experience of trauma and the photographic image. Instead of treating trauma as a photographic "theme," Baer examines the striking parallel between those moments arrested mechanically by photography and those arrested experientially by the traumatized psyche—moments that bypass normal cognition and memory. Taking as points of departure Charcot's images of hysteria and Freud's suggestion that the unconscious is structured like a camera, Baer shows how the invention of photography and the emergence of the modern category of "trauma" intersect. Drawing on recent work in the field of trauma studies, he shows how experiences that are inherently split between their occurrence and their remembrance might register in and as photographic images. In light of contemporary discussions of recovered memories and the limits of representing such catastrophes as the Holocaust, Baer examines photographs of artistic, medical, and historical subjects from the perspective of witnessing rather than merely viewing. He shows how historicist approaches to photography paradoxically overlook precisely those cataclysmic experiences that define our age. The photograph's apparent immunity to time is seen as a call for a future response—a response that is prompted by the ghostly afterlife of every photograph's subject. In a moving discussion of a rare collection of color slides taken by a Nazi official in the Lodz ghetto, Baer makes us aware that it is the viewer's responsibility to account for the spectral evidence embedded in every image.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction

210 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2002

About the author

Ulrich Baer is University Professor at New York University, and the recipient of Guggenheim, Getty, Humboldt and other awards, An author, translator, editor, and podcaster, he has published, among other titles: Rilke's "Letters on Life," Rilke's "The Dark Interval: Letters of Loss, Grief and Transformation," "Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma," "110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11," "Beggar's Chicken: Stories from Shanghai," the novel "We Are But A Moment," "What Snowflakes Get Right: Speech, Equality and Truth in the University," "Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts" (with Smaran Dayal).

He's also published museum catalog on a range of photographers, and published and introduced top-quality and well-priced editions of The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein, The Scarlet Letter, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Prophet, Jane Eyre, Mrs. Dalloway, Pride and Prejudice, stories by E. A. Poe, as well as Wilde on Love; Dickinson on Love; Rilke on Love; Nietzsche on Love; Shakespeare on Love, all with Warbler Press.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is suggestive rather than having a strong argument. The structure is a little eccentric: photographs of hysteria are analysed in one chapter, while the rest of the book considers photographs about the holocaust. There's little engagement with other books on the topic of holocaust imagery such as the work of Didi-Huberman, Lisa Saltzman and Barbie Zelizer. On the other hand, the book does raises some interesting issues about hysteria and the camera and examines some interesting photographic projects about the Holocaust. On the whole, the writer does not handle images well, although the discussion of landscape is quite nuanced. My feeling is the book needed another draft and deeper thinking, nonetheless it is provocative and well worth reading.

[Scotch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why are we still talking about psychoanalysis?! Also, something about men describing every detail in a photograph just feels perverse to me—almost pornographic lol.

But I’m at least drawn to the idea of photography and history’s malleable, relational meaning, which can escape even the photographer, historian, and subject’s understanding.