Representing the Catastrophic: Coming to Terms with "Unimaginable" Suffering and "Incomprehensible" Horror in Visual Culture

When attempting to represent a catastrophic event in history the tendency is to disavowal the event by referring to it as "unimaginable," or otherwise such events are assigned to the domain of "fiction" or "fantasy." For example, in response to 9/11 and the images of the planes flying into buildings, manyresponded "it was like I was watching a movie." How then, when our knee-jerk response is to assign catastrophic events to the "incomprehensible" or the domain of utter fantasy, do we convey the reality of these events? What rhetorical strategies are at our disposal? How are catastrophic events, such as the Holocaust or Hiroshima represented, when we no longer have an immediate relationship to them? When thelast survivors of these catastrophic events are gone, how will we relate to representations of these events? What rhetorical strategies will prove most useful in conveying the historical significance of these events, even when the physical traces are gone? This book addresses these questions.Aaron Kerner is the author of 'Representing the Catastrophic: Coming to Terms with "Unimaginable" Suffering and "Incomprehensible" Horror in Visual Culture', published 2007 under ISBN 9780773454101 and ISBN 0773454101.