Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation

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U of Minnesota Press, 2000 - History - 323 pages
Presents a post-Holocaust view of contemporary culture. Examines, in particular, the question of realism as one of the central problematics that the Holocaust forces back into view. Pt. 1 (p. 17-96), "Modernism 'After Auschwitz', " discusses the philosophers Theodor Adorno and Maurice Blanchot. Pt. 2 (p. 97-177), "Realism in 'the Concentrationary Universe', " deals with the literary works of Ruth Klueger and Charlotte Delbo. Pt. 3 (p. 179-273), "Postmodernism, or 'the Year of the Holocaust', " deals with Philip Roth, Art Spiegelman, and Americanizing the Holocaust. Derives from Holocaust testimonies the concept of traumatic realism as a way of superseding the realist vs. anti-realist dichotomy. Stresses the relation between present and past, and a shift from events to their transmission, including in mass culture, via such forms as comic books, feature films, and museum exhibits.
 

Contents

After Adorno Culture in the Wake of Catastrophe
13
Before Auschwitz Maurice Blanchot From Now On
47
REALISM IN THE CONCENTRATIONARY UNIVERSE
71
The Barbed Wire of the Postwar World Ruth Klügers Traumatic Realism
81
Unbearable Witness Charlotte Delbos Traumatic Timescapes
115
POSTMODERNISM OR THE YEAR OF THE HOLOCAUST
153
Reading Jewish Philip Roth Art Spiegelman and Holocaust Postmemory
161
Touch an Event to Begin Americanizing the Holocaust
195
After the Final Solution From the Jewish Question to Jewish Questioning
227
Notes
237
Bibliography
261
Index
277
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Page 1 - Cognition of the object in its constellation is cognition of the process stored in the object. As a constellation, theoretical thought circles the concept it would like to unseal, hoping that it may fly open like the lock of a wellguarded safe-deposit box: in response, not to a single key or a single number, but to a combination of numbers.

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