Studies in Literature and the Arts (487-0-20)

Topic

Holocaust Writing

Instructors

Anna Parkinson
847/467-5173
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge Hall, Rm 3321, Evanston
Office Hours: By appointment

Meeting Info

Kresge 3354 German Seminar Rm.: Mon 1:00PM - 3:50PM

Overview of class

GERMAN 404: Holocaust Writing and its Discontents
Overview of class
Described as a fundamental "break in civilization" (Dan Diner) or a caesura in Enlightenment humanism, the term "Holocaust" now designates the systematic persecution and murder of over two-thirds of the Jewish population of European by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. More than half a century later, a vast body of fiction and non-fiction writing has been dedicated to recording, imagining, extrapolating from, and attempting to comprehend these catastrophic events. It has been argued that the Holocaust cannot be represented (aesthetic limitations), that it should not be represented (Bilderverbot/ban on graven images), and that it must be born witness to and never forgotten (ethical imperatives). So, what exactly is Holocaust writing? This course seeks to answer this question through the analysis of canonical and lesser-known variants of autobiographical as well as fiction writing about and by Holocaust survivors, such as Primo Levi and Grete Weil. We will explore genres, styles, and tropes associated with Holocaust writing by examining the use of irony, satire, and hyperbole (Hans Keilson, Hannah Arendt), as well as the grotesque or even pornographic in fiction (Edgar Hilsenrath), through to the essay form (Jean Améry, Primo Levi); up to the event's ongoing impact in the field of continental philosophy (Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben). Other topics that may be addressed include the question of authenticity and identity (the Binjamin Wilkomirski affair, Benjamin Stein); the "era of the witness" and the status of testimony (Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub, Annette Wieviorka); metatestimony (Ruth Klüger) and postmemory (Marianne Hirsch); fantasies of revenge (Wolfgang Hildesheimer), the connection between writing and affect in postwar therapeutic and psychoanalytic writing (Hans Keilson, Viktor Frankl); and, finally, what might be called Holocaust writing of the second degree (W.G. Sebald).

Class Materials (Suggested)

Students may read books in English and/or in German, however discussions of the texts will take place in English. Books required for this course may include the following:
Agamben, Giorgio, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Zone, 2002. ISBN: 978-1890951177.
Blanchot, Maurice and Jacques Derrida, The Instance of My Death/Demeure: Fiction and Testimony. Stanford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 978-0804733250.
Hildesheimer, Wolfgang, Tynset. Dalkey Archive Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1628971422.
Hilsenrath, Edgar, The Nazi and the Barber. Barber Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-3981609219.
Keilson, Hans, The Death of the Adversary. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. ISBN: 978-0374139629.
Klüger, Ruth, Still Alive: a Holocaust Childhood Remembered. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2003. ISBN: 978-1558614369 weiter leben: Eine Jugend. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003. ISBN: 978-3423119504.
Levi, Primo, Survival in Auschwitz. Touchstone, 1996. ISBN: 978-0684826806.
Weil, Grete, Last Trolley from Beethovenstraat. David R. Godine, 1997. ISBN: 978-1567920314.
Wieviorka, Annette, The Era of the Witness. Cornell University Press, 2006. ISBN: 978-0801473166.
Wilkomirski, Binjamin, Fragments: Memories of a Childhood, 1939-1945. P/B, First Thus Edition. ISBN: 978-0330349925.