The Holocaust and the postmodern

Abstract

This book argues that postmodernism, especially in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, is a deeply engaged response to the Holocaust. In turn, this thought illuminates a number of issues in our understanding of the Holocaust. The book is divided into three parts. The first part, Reading and the Holocaust, concentrates on testimony and literature, and argues that testimony is a new and singular genre with its own generic characteristics. It clarifies issues of memory and literature and analyses and defines post-1990 Holocaust fiction. The second part, Holocaust Histories, argues that there are two different understandings of truth at work in the discipline of history, and that the history of the Holocaust brings this to the fore: later chapters explore this by looking at the work of one leading Holocaust historian, Saul Friedländer, the limits of historical explanation, and at Holocaust denial. The third part, The Trace of the Holocaust, turns to philosophy and argues in detail that the work of Levinas is a response to the Holocaust and evaluates its success. Chapter 10 evaluates Derrida's thought as post-Holocaust philosophy and focuses on the idea of the trace. Chapter 11 looks at philosophical attempts to explain Nazism and reveals the limits of philosophical discourse. The final chapter turns to the idea of the human and looks at ways in which the human has been thought after the Holocaust. The conclusion turns to issues to which this overall discussion might lead.