Abstract/Summary

The publication of Laura Marcus’s Auto/biographical Discourses: Criticism, Theory, Practice (1994) coincided with a conference that I co-organised with her called ‘Modernity, Culture and “the Jew”’ (1994). We both expected the conference to be a modest event, but it turned out to be over-subscribed with many hundreds in attendance. In the light of our conference, my essay explores some of the reasons why the 1990s was thought of as an ‘age of testimony’ which is addressed in Auto/biographical Discourses and subsequent essays by Laura. The essay will then compare the playfulness of the autobiographical genre with the ethical seriousness of Holocaust testimonies and slave narratives. At the heart of the essay is Laura’s conceptualisation of autobiography and its connections with those who write testimonial memoirs in extremis.