Introduction to The Image and the Witness

Controversy over visual imagery of trauma and disaster has never been greater. "The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture" is thus a timely interdisciplinary collection of new essays about the ethical stakes of the image in our visually-saturated age. This book explores the interrelated issues of the role of the material image in bearing witness to historical events and the visual representation of witnesses to collective trauma. In arguing for the agency of the image, this unique collection engages in important debates over post-traumatic memory, documentary ethics, embodied vision and the recycling of images. The book discusses works by Chris Marker, Errol Morris, Derek Jarman, Doris Salcedo, Gerhard Richter and Boris Mikhailov, alongside images from popular culture, including websites and home movies.