The Ethics of Witnessing in Pandemic Times: A Tandem Reading of José Saramago’s Blindness and Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle

Deniz Gündoğan İbrişim

Jump to Content

Chapter 6 The Ethics of Witnessing in Pandemic Times

A Tandem Reading of José Saramago’s Blindness and Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle

In: World Literature in and for Pandemic Times

Author:

Deniz Gündoğan İbrişim

Deniz Gündoğan İbrişim
Search for other papers by Deniz Gündoğan İbrişim in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 63–81

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004744622_007

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

€42.00€35.00 excl. VAT

Add to Cart

Redeem Access Token

Abstract

Both individual and public witnessing have always been integral to the process of living through catastrophe. Writing, and particularly literature, is a powerful form of witnessing. Reading José Saramago’s Blindness (1995) in tandem with Orhan Pamuk’s The While Caste (1985), this essay engages with the concept of witnessing, extending and deepening the way we might think about witnessing in a novel way in times of epidemics and pandemics. By reading these texts as narratives of plagues and epidemics at large, this essay aims to expand and challenge the association between witnessing and speech, between witnessing and sight through a critical attention to the role of affect, vitality, human and nonhuman materiality, and other communicative modes in these novels. While representing pandemics and epidemics, both Saramago and Pamuk, I argue, represent life, death, and the relation between self and other “beyond the human,” with powerful implications for our contemporary understanding of history, community, and politics. Thereby, these texts create dynamic, and unorthodox narrative strategy for relating to, connecting with, and narrating other and more-than-human worlds, affected by heteronomy amid contagion.

Citation Info

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share link with colleague or librarian

You can email a link to this page to a colleague or librarian:
Email this content
or copy the link directly:

https://brill.edhh.ma/abstract/book/9789004744622/BP000006.xml
The link was not copied. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Link copied successfully

Collapse
Expand

World Literature in and for Pandemic Times

Series: Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature, Volume: 110

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004744622

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 08 Oct 2025

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

Front Matter

ProCite

RefWorks

Reference Manager

BibTeX

Zotero

EndNote

Metrics

	All Time	Past 365 days	Past 30 Days
Abstract Views	26	26	4
Full Text Views	1	1	0
PDF Views & Downloads	1	1	0

African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

Subjects

Authors

Open Access

Product Information

Company

Contact

Chapter 6 The Ethics of Witnessing in Pandemic Times

A Tandem Reading of José Saramago’s Blindness and Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

World Literature in and for Pandemic Times

Table of Contents

References

Metrics

Metrics