Avital Ronell is a professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she directs the Research in Trauma & Violence project. She is author of Dictations: On Haunted Writing, The Telephone Book, Crack Wars, Finitude's Score, Stupidity, and The Test Drive. Diane Davis is an associate professor of rhetoric at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Breaking Up [at] Totality: A Rhetoric of Laughter.