Law Meets Literature: Raphael Lemkin and Genocide Studies

Abstract

Abstract Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) was a Polish-Jewish jurist who coined the term genocide and worked tirelessly for its codification in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide as a crime under international law. Most of his writings on genocide were published around fifty years posthumously as the core of the field of genocide studies that emerged in the 1990s. Bearing the sense of inseparability of Lemkin the author and his writings, this article concerns the death-of-the-author postulate amid the origin myth that surrounds him. It engages in his strategies for resisting his death as an author and with the multiple professional, political, and social languages that probe and transgress their respective genres. While genocide studies now seem to reluctantly critique Lemkin’s ideas, they nevertheless remain captivated by Lemkin the author and seem to be affected by his passion, multiple voices, languages, and genres. In this they tread in his footsteps in both form and content.