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

于World Literature in and for Pandemic Times

著者：

Deniz Gündoğan İbrişim

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

类型:: 章节

Page Range:: 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

找回访问令牌

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.

引用信息

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share Link

Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend
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

折叠
展开
回到页面顶端

World Literature in and for Pandemic Times

丛编： Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature, 卷： 110

ISBN:: 9789004744622

出版社:: Brill

印刷出版日期:: 08 Oct 2025

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

Front Matter

ProCite

RefWorks

Reference Manager

BibTeX

Zotero

EndNote

统计数据

	全部期间	过去一年	过去30天
摘要浏览次数	26	26	4
全文浏览次数	1	1	0
PDF下载次数	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

AppBar-Authors 2025

AppBar-Open Access 2025

AppBar-Product Information 2025

AppBar-Company 2025

AppBar-Contact 2025

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

引用信息

Share Link

World Literature in and for Pandemic Times

目录

参考资料

统计数据

统计数据