Commonplace Witnessing
Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture
Bradford Vivian
Reviews and Awards
"Bradford Vivan's Commonplace Witnessing is a work of ambitious scope and incisive scholarship..."-- Michael Richarson, University of New South Wales, Memory Studies
"Commonplace Witnessing beyond the status of a scholarly treatise: this book compels not only new ways of thinking, but also new ways of doing." -- Katherine Mack, University of Colorado, Quarterly Journal of Speeh
"Commonplace Witnessing is a valuable and thought- provoking contribution that successfully shifts the focus on witnessing from an individual/ authentic to a public/ rhetorical axis. Vivian's examples are appropriately provocative, and his sharp and detailed readings of these more than adequately support his central claims." --Ivan Stacy, Textual Practice
"This book is a far-reaching exploration of a phenomenon Bradford Vivian has called 'commonplace witnessing;' by emphasizing the rhetorical strategies by which individuals bear witness to the past, over and above the requirement of first-hand or 'authentic' experience, Vivian reveals the ways in which witnessing has emerged as a subjective position that anyone might assume. Moreover, this commonplace witnessing can play a formative role in a more capacious construction of community over shared, difficult histories. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the past is mobilized to make claims both civic and political on behalf of the present."-Alison Landberg, Professor of History and Cultural Studies, George Mason University
"An extraordinary book. Vivian confronts the ubiquitous demand to bear witness and does not blink. Weaving subtle historical analysis and incisive reflection, he demonstrates what far too few want to recognize: public witnessing is an inextricably rhetorical act, a gathering of words, tropes, and arguments that invent collective memory and underwrite public culture in liberal democracies. If, as Vivian suggests, we are all called to bear witness, this book sheds crucial light on the constitutive elements of witnessing and the dilemmas that attend the witness' struggle to speak to what may well remain unspeakable. It is a book that needs to be read by all of those who hail remembrance as a cornerstone of ethical life."-Erik Doxtader, Professor of Rhetoric, University of South Carolina and Sr. Research Fellow, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation