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A Poetics of ForgivenessPhotography and Forgiveness: Visualizing Reconciliation

A Poetics of Forgiveness: Photography and Forgiveness: Visualizing Reconciliation [We feel her panic and terror as if it were our own. When we look at the image of Kim Phuk, we can almost hear her visceral scream and our own breath sticks in our throats. The girl’s exposed body, with nowhere to hide and nothing to protect it, is a powerful symbol of the vulnerability of humanity as a whole—we are, all of us, born naked and are undone by what Judith Butler calls the precariousness of life (Precarious Life xviii). From my description of this emotional response one might assume I was speaking of a close friend or relative. But the picture I have in mind here is Nick Ut’s Vietnam Napalm (1972), which depicts a child, Kim Phuk, fleeing the poison of American bombs. I do not know this child and have only a vague idea of her circumstances. It is photography’s ability to capture the girl’s visceral anguish with accuracy and immediacy that jerks us to attention.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Poetics of ForgivenessPhotography and Forgiveness: Visualizing Reconciliation

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2010
ISBN
978-1-349-37911-8
Pages
113 –140
DOI
10.1057/9780230106246_6
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[We feel her panic and terror as if it were our own. When we look at the image of Kim Phuk, we can almost hear her visceral scream and our own breath sticks in our throats. The girl’s exposed body, with nowhere to hide and nothing to protect it, is a powerful symbol of the vulnerability of humanity as a whole—we are, all of us, born naked and are undone by what Judith Butler calls the precariousness of life (Precarious Life xviii). From my description of this emotional response one might assume I was speaking of a close friend or relative. But the picture I have in mind here is Nick Ut’s Vietnam Napalm (1972), which depicts a child, Kim Phuk, fleeing the poison of American bombs. I do not know this child and have only a vague idea of her circumstances. It is photography’s ability to capture the girl’s visceral anguish with accuracy and immediacy that jerks us to attention.]

Published: Oct 10, 2015

Keywords: Transitional Justice; Marshall Plan; Rwandan Genocide; Sovereign Authority; Unconscious Desire

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