历史、创伤与文学——拉卡普拉的“书写创伤”理论及其伦理意义

History,Trauma,and Literature:Dominick LaCapra’s Theory of“Writing Trauma”and Its Ethical Significance

20世纪中后期史学研究领域出现了历史表征危机,当代重要的创伤理论家拉卡普拉在批判传统史学方法的基础上,主张打破学科界限,促进历史与精神分析学、文学、哲学和伦理学等诸学科之间的对话互动,重建了历史书写的可能。他在跨学科视域下探索了极端历史事件"否定的崇高"的美学特征与创伤类型,并诉诸言语行为理论和伦理学,提出了"书写创伤"说。作为历史创伤的一种行动化复现,"书写创伤"借助述行语言与被压抑的历史意识进行对话、协商,从而修通历史创伤,是一种富含诗性特质的"言语行为",它搁置了历史书写"真实再现"的客观标准,在伦理学层面融合了历史与文学要素,由此成为一种具有社会伦理意义的文化实践。拉卡普拉关于历史、创伤与文学的思考,对当下文学理论中相关论题的研究具有深刻的启发意义。

Due to the crisis of historical representation in the field of historiography in the mid-to-late twentieth century,Dominick LaCapra,an important thinker of“trauma theory,”puts the traditional methodology in historiography into question and reconstructs possibilities in historical writing by proposing to break traditional disciplinary boundaries and promote dialogues between history and psychoanalysis,literature,philosophy as well as ethics.From an interdisciplinary perspective,LaCapra explores the aesthetics of“negative sublime”and types of trauma in extreme events,and proposes the theory of“writing trauma”through combining speech act theory and ethics.As a kind of acting-out of the historical trauma,“writing trauma”speaks to and negotiates with the repressed historical consciousness through performative language.It is a poetic“speech act”that serves to work through the historical trauma.Setting aside the objective standard of“representing reality”in historical writing,“writing trauma”integrates historical and literary elements on the ethical level,thus becoming a cultural practice with social ethical significance.LaCapra’s thoughts on history,trauma and literature are of great significance for the study of relevant topics in contemporary literary theory.