Multidirectional memory : remembering the Holocaust in the age of decolonization / Michael Rothberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rothberg, Michael.

Series:

Cultural memory in the present

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Historiography.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Historiography.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) in literature.

Decolonization--Historiography.

Decolonization.

Decolonization in literature.

Collective memory.

Collective memory in literature.

Physical Description:

xvii, 379 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2009.

Summary:

What happens when different histories confront each other in the public sphere? Does the remembrance of one history erase others from view? When memories of slavery and colonialism bump up against memories of the Holocaust in contemporary multicultural societies, must a competition of victims ensue? Multidirectional Memory addresses these vexing questions by advancing a new theory of remembrance that challenges the basic tenets of current thinking on cultural memory and group identity. Most discussions of the relationship between memory and identity today are based on a zero-sum logic in which the evocation of one group's history is said to block other groups' histories from view. Rothberg contrasts this model of "competitive memory" with a theory of "multidirectional memory" that redescribes the public sphere as a field of contestation where memories interact productively and in unexpected ways. By making visible an intellectual and artistic countertradition that links memories of genocide and colonialism, he reveals how the public articulation of collective memory by marginalized and oppositional social groups provides resources for other groups to stake their own claims for recognition and justice.

Contents:

Introduction : theorizing multidirectional memory in a transnational age

Boomerang effects : bare life, trauma, and the colonial turn in Holocaust studies

At the limits of Eurocentrism : Hannah Arendt's The origins of totalitarianism

"Un choc en retour": Aimé Césaire's discourses on colonialism and genocide

Migrations of memory : ruins, ghettos, diasporas

W.E.B. Du Bois in Warsaw : Holocaust memory and the color line

Anachronistic aesthetics : André Schwarz-Bart and Caryl Phillips on the ruins of memory

Truth, torture, testimony : Holocaust memory during the Algerian War

The work of testimony in the age of decolonization : Chronicle of a summer and the emergence of the Holocaust survivor

The counterpublic witness : Charlotte Delbo's Les belles lettres

October 17, 1961 : a site of Holocaust memory?

A tale of three ghettos : race, gender, and "universality" after October 17, 1961

Hidden children : the ethics of multigenerational memory after 1961

Epilogue : multidirectional memory in an age of occupations.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804762175

0804762171

9780804762182

080476218X

OCLC:

258330957