The Objects That Remain

Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination

by Laura Levitt

On a November evening in 1989, Laura Levitt was raped in her own bed. Her landlord heard the assault taking place and called 911, but the police arrived too late to apprehend Laura’s attacker. When they left, investigators took items with them―a pair of sweatpants, the bedclothes―and a rape exam was performed at the hospital. However, this evidence was never processed. Decades later, Laura returns to these objects, viewing them not as clues that will lead to the identification of her assailant but rather as a means of engaging traumatic legacies writ large. The Objects That Remain is equal parts personal memoir and fascinating examination of the ways in which the material remains of violent crimes inform our experience of, and thinking about, trauma and loss. Considering artifacts in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and evidence in police storage facilities across the country, Laura’s story moves between intimate trauma, the story of an unsolved rape, and genocide. Throughout, she asks what it might mean to do justice to these violent pasts outside the juridical system or through historical empiricism, which are the dominant ways in which we think about evidence from violent crimes and other highly traumatic events. Over the course of her investigation, the author reveals how these objects that remain and the stories that surround them enable forms of intimacy. In this way, she models for us a different kind of reckoning, where justice is an animating process of telling and holding.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Theory

184 pages, Hardcover

Published November 2, 2020

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you seek revenge for having your safety and wellbeing taken away from you because of a rape in the home where you would think things would be secure?

There is talk about the blood crying out for their victims, and all coming whole at the end of days but the author doesn't want that, not exactly. She analyzes how revenge and justice don't always work out, and how they didn't work out for her. Her rape kit was never processed, the rapist never found, her clothes and evidence taken that day, never processed, and lost. It is an odd hole left in her life, for which she has no solution.

Thanks to the publisher for making this book available for an honest review.

[shiloh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initially read this book because of its connections to sexual violence, but was really happy to also see lengthy exploration of the information science of traumatic objects. This book made me think about objects from my own life and how they might carry or mediate trauma, why I keep them, and what led to me being able to keep them at all (as Levitt notes the disappearance or purging of evidence). Would recommend to anyone interested in explorations of sexual violence, archives, and anyone who likes Maggie Nelson (who is quoted a lot).

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful, challenging, and ultimately hopeful book. Full of academic theory, it is not an easy read, in style or subject. It is a hybrid work, a lyrical one, that blends academic rigor with the introspection of memoir, along with close readings of books by Maggie Nelson and Edmund de Waal. Levitt draws fascinating connections between the lost evidence in the cold case of her long-ago rape, and the challenges that face curators and custodians of museum collections, like that of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

[Darla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Levitt’s beautiful new book weaves a personal voice (voice of a survivor of sexual violence & voice of a deep reader of poets & other texts) with scholarly research and inquiry to meditate on objects’ lives (evidentiary objects’ lives) in the after: proof of not only trauma but survival. It’s an astoundingly expansive project dressed in a small book, small enough to be carried everywhere.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Objects That Remain
By Laura Levitt
Laura Levitt’s The Objects That Remain recounts her traumatic assault in relation to other violent crimes, including the Holocaust. Levitt examines the value that material objects, such as Levitt’s sweatpants or the shoes of Holocaust victims, gain after serving as witnesses to brutal attacks. She argues that these objects’ transformations are comparable to those done in religious ceremonies and that these objects can serve as a form of justice to victims. Levitt’s emphasis regarding the worth and purpose of material objects is compelling and crucial as it provides a new source of closure to victims who have been failed by the justice system.
The Objects That Remain is equally a personal memoir and an examination of the purpose, handling, and importance of evidence and artifacts. Levitt is currently a professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender at Temple University. Other than this piece, Levitt has also written Jews and Feminism and American Jewish Loss After the Holocaust. The Objects That Remain focuses primarily on Levitt’s brutal rape while in graduate school and her journey to healing afterward, which she admits she is still processing. Levitt describes her Jewish-Liberal upbringing and expresses her frustration with both God and the State, as she feels both have failed her. The evidence from her rape kit was never tested and was eventaully lost, and her faith waivered as she failed to make sense of this attack. Instead, following the lead of some of her colleagues, Levitt explored the justice that the material objects linked to her assault could provide her.
Levitt divides her novel into two parts, the first highlighting the transformation and power of objects displayed in religious texts, and the second examining the actual process of handling and preserving evidence and artifacts. Levitt cites the porphyrion of God, a cloak the Jewish believed holds the blood of the guilty who would later be punished by God, to exemplify the use of material objects as a source of justice in ancient religious texts. After establishing that evidence serves as silent witnesses of crimes that can provide the victims justice if correctly handled, Levitt transitions to the preservation of these objects. In terms of evidence in a juridical case, she criticizes the curators’, being the property officers who preserve evidence for the court, lack of professional knowledge regarding the preservation of evidence as this crucial process has the potential to devalue the evidence’s worth. Levitt dedicates a portion of her book to discuss a course she took intended for property officers which highlighted the lack of funding, attention, and professionalization this crucial position receives. With regards to the artifacts provided to a museum, Levitt examines the practices of the United State’s Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum’s conservator must preserve the remaining artifacts of the Holocaust to maintain their purpose of keeping the victim’s story alive. Levitt argues the significance of how objects are handled as they can transform the object just as the initial crime does. Throughout both parts, Levitt relates her personal trauma and her desire for justice to the violence experienced by other victims and the broader processing of evidence to establish the role of objects and those who handle them to the victim’s sense of justice and closure.
Levitt succeeds in exemplifying the significance of objects in regards to the well-being and justice of victims that cannot receive retribution elsewhere. She utilizes ancient religious texts to demonstrate the longwith standing belief that objects under certain conditions gain a new, holy meaning. Through her own devastating experiences, she can attest to the trauma she suffered after her attack, as she describes life after her rape as the afterlife, which can only be connected to her pre-attack life through the objects that are reminiscent of her attack. She refers to trials for other victims as the desired closure for a victim, however as she and many other victims cannot have their day in court, she turns to the silent witnesses of her pain for comfort. Levitt’s overwhelming amount of evidence regarding the power of objects, including religious texts, memoirs of other victims, Holocaust artifacts, and her own case file, she proves the power of these seemingly worthless objects to carry the story of a silenced victim.
Levitt’s book is confusing in terms of organization and clarity in regards to her claim at points. While The Objects That Remain excelled in terms of the amount of evidence presented, the facts overshadowed the claim at several points. Levitt’s piece is unique in that it is following her own struggle to understand how she can heal without any tangible justice for her own suffering by examining other victims as well as the evidence process as a whole. This personal narrative interwoven with numerous other victim accounts, as well as in depth descriptions of evidentiary processes in both the judicial and museum systems results in an at times muddled account. An effect of deep diving into a broad topic, such as material objects in relation to victims, leads to wide ranging claims that are at times difficult to comprehend in relation to her initial argument.
The Objects That Remain effectively portrays the significant role of objects as immortal witnesses to crimes for victims seeking justice. This piece offers a new source of justice and comfort to victims that may never receive legal retribution. Levitt links her claim to both religion and politics when explaining her initial purpose for conducting this research as her faith and her government failed her. She questioned her faith in Judaism after her brutal attack, as she could not comprehend a God that would allow that pain to occur, and she lost all trust in the judicial system as she learned her case went cold only days after it occurred and the police lost her evidence. This piece would benefit any readers interested in trauma, as well as its relation to greater themes such as that of religion or America’s justice system. More specifically, I would recommend The Objects That Remain to undergraduate students who want a digestible introduction into the lasting effects of trauma and its intertwining relationship with religion.

Bibliography
Levitt, Laura. The Objects That Remain. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020.

[Gwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't. I felt Ms. Levitt gave us a lot of information, but I am not sure what she set out to accomplish. Maybe I just didn't get the book. I have not been raped, so I cannot image what a person goes through and the repercussions as the years go by. I wish for Ms. Levitt to find peace at some time in her life and know that she survived and did amazing things because she survived. That is all that should matter.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

read a snippet of the book in my political violence class and loved the style of the writing so I decided to read it. super powerful and insightful

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Over the years I have crafted many words to contain my pain, none of which are definitive. We keep writing, trying to breathe new life into traumatic pasts, pointing toward different futures."

[Brit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Levitt's The Objects That Remain explores how ordinary, everyday objects assume greater significance after some type of traumatic and or violent event. Part of this exploration is looking at objects from the Holocaust and her own items from her rape in 1989. She shows how we preserve such objects as historical evidence and as evidence in the criminal justice system and explores what that means for us (legal definitions, cultural impact, personal history, commemoration, religiously, etc.). This interdisciplinary work also highlights the similarities and differences in how we approach and preserve the physical evidence of trauma (ex: archival work done at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the lost/forgotten items in law enforcement custody). Dr. Levitt's work is both a personal story of trauma and an academic exploration of evidence.

I would recommend this book to anyone who read and enjoyed Maggie Neslon's works (especially Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts: A Memoir), who is interested in the work of archives (especially in regards to trauma), and who is interested in a personal history of sexual violence.

I also really liked the cover for this work - it's simple and elegant!