The Holocaust and the postmodern
By: Robert Eaglestone.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 369
Subjects: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature; Postmodernism (Literature); Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Description: "The Holocaust and the Postmodern argues that postmodernism, especially understood in the light of the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, is a response to the Holocaust. This way of thinking offers new perspectives on Holocaust testimony, literature, historiography, and post-Holocaust philosophy. While postmodernism is often derided for being either playful and superficial or obscure and elitist, this book demonstrates its commitment to facing the past and to ethics." "Weaving together theory and practice, testimony, literature, history, and philosophy, this interdisciplinary book is the first to explore in detail the significance of the Holocaust for postmodernism, and the significance of postmodernism for understanding the Holocaust."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Reading and the holocaust: 'Not read and consumed in the same way as other books' : identification and the genre of testimony ; Traces of experience : the texts of testimony ; 'Faithful and doubtful, near and far' : memory, postmemory, and identity ; Holocaust reading : memory and identification in Holocaust fiction, 1990-2003; title: Holocaust metahistories: Against historicism : history, memory, and truth ; 'Are footnotes less barbaric?' : history, memory, and the truth of the Holocaust in the work of Saul Friedländer ; 'What constitutes a historical explanation" : metahistory and the limits of historical explanation in the Goldhagen/Browning controversy ; The metahistory of denial : the Irving/Lipstady libel case and Holocaust denial; title: The trace of the Holocaust: Inexhaustible meaning, inextinguishable voices : Levinas and the Holocaust ; Cinders of philosophy, philosophy of cinders : Derrida and the trace of the Holocaust ; The limits of understanding: perpetrator philosophy and philosophical histories ; The postmodern, the Holocaust, and the limits of the human.