Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma

by Dominick LaCapra

Overview

Defying comprehension, the tragic history of the Holocaust has been alternately repressed and canonized in postmodern Western culture. Recently our interpretation of the Holocaust has been the center of bitter controversies, from debates over Paul de Man's collaborationist journalism and Martin Heidegger’s Nazi past to attempts by some historians to downplay the Holocaust’s significance. A major voice in current historiographical discussions, Dominick LaCapra brings a new clarity to these issues as he examines the intersections between historical events and the theory through which we struggle to understand them.In a series of essays—three published here for the first time—LaCapra explores the problems faced by historians, critics, and thinkers who attempt to grasp the Holocaust. He considers the role of canon formation and the dynamic of revisionist historiography, as well as critically analyzing responses to the discovery of de Man’s wartime writings. He also discusses Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism, and he sheds light on postmodernist obsessions with such concepts as loss, agora, dispossession, deferred meaning, and the sublime. Throughout, LaCapra demonstrates that psychoanalysis is not merely a psychology of the individual but that its concepts have sociocultural dimensions and can help us perceive the relationship between the present and the past. Many of our efforts to comprehend the Holocaust, he shows, continue to suffer from the traumatizing effects of its events and require a "working through" of that trauma if we are to gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of the Holocaust.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801429972
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	06/28/1994
Series:	12/1/2006
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dominick LaCapra is Professor Emeritus of History and Comparative Literature and Bowmar Professor Emeritus of Humanistic Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of many books, includingHistory, Literature, Critical Theory;History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence; andHistory in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Canons, Texts, and Contexts
2. Reflections on the Historians' Debate
3. Historicizing the Holocaust
4. Paul de Man as Object of Transference
5. Heidegger's Nazi Tum
6. The Return of the Historically Repressed
Conclusion: Acting-Out and Working-Through

What People are Saying About This

Emily Miller Budick

"Profoundly thoughtful and humane reflections on a subject of utmost importance, not only to Jews and Jewish culture, but to Western culture itself."

Anson Rabinbach

Representing the Holocaust is an impressive book that will have a significant impact on the way historians think about the Holocaust and the writing of history. LaCapra's precise and probing study explores the ways that the traumatic event inevitably disrupts the relationship between representation and memory. He writes from the deep conviction that whatever historians might believe, theory is indispensable for them. Indeed, his work best exemplifies the value of theory, setting a standard for historiographical reflection that is not easily matched.

Editorial Reviews

Dominick LaCapra may be the most original intellectual historian writing in America today. LaCapra begins, in this book, to provide a means by which one can critically examine the engagement of the historian/critic with his or her object of study.

Modern Philology - Sander L. Gilman

Representing the Holocaust is a probing analysis of the relations between historiographical, personal, and cultural identity formation in the aftermath of the historical trauma of the Holocaust.

American Historical Review - John E. Toews

Representing the Holocaust is a probing analysis of the relations between historiographical, personal, and cultural identity formation in the aftermath of the historical trauma of the Holocaust.

John E. Toewsn Historical Review

Representing the Holocaust is a probing analysis of the relations between historiographical, personal, and cultural identity formation in the aftermath of the historical trauma of the Holocaust.

--John E. Toews "American Historical Review"

Dominick LaCapra may be the most original intellectual historian writing in America today. LaCapra begins, in this book, to provide a means by which one can critically examine the engagement of the historian/critic with his or her object of study.

--Sander L. Gilman "Modern Philology"

From the Publisher