scholarly journals “The Torture of Colonization and the Holocaust: Multidirectional Memory in The Nature of Blood”

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Webb
Keyword(s):  
Linear Time ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Competitive Model ◽  
Diary Of Anne Frank ◽  
Multidirectional Memory

In this paper, I read Caryl Phillips’s 1997 post-colonial The Nature of Blood as a novel that exemplifies Michael Rothberg’s theory of “multidirectional memory.” Rothberg’s theory, which argues against the dominant competitive model of memory in the United States, asserts that memory is a “productive, intercultural dynamic” (Rothberg 3). In other words, memories of different groups of people, specifically African-Americans and Holocaust survivors in his essay, are intertwined and inform each other in a modern setting. Phillips’s novel depicts a relationship between the Holocaust and colonization through the use of multiple narratives interwoven throughout the novel. Those narratives begin with the Stern family, specifically Eva Stern, a survivor of a Nazi death camp who eventually commits suicide, and Eva’s uncle Stephan, a man who abandoned his family in order to join Israel and who eventually regrets his decision. The novel also explores other lives: Othello, the Moor of Shakespeare’s Othello before the events of the play during the early modern period; three Jews falsely accused of the murder of a Christian boy in the town of Portobuffole during the 15th century; Malka, a struggling Ethiopian Jew in Israel during Operation Solomon in 1991. The painful and bloody similarities in the relationship between the Holocaust and colonization are created through the nonlinearity of time and the refutation of modernity, which combine to depict the still ongoing consequences of genocide and colonization. The invalidation of modernity, which is the notion that humanity is forever moving toward a better civilized future, is significant because modernity is a lie despite some people’s belief otherwise. The nonlinearity is evidenced through the novel’s traversing of multiple historical periods. As Rothberg notes, it constellates these different histories in order to emphasize their commonalities. This paper extends this insight by focusing on the centuries of othering described in the novel that have resulted in the tragic relationship they share and the involvement of canonized works such as Shakespeare’s plays and The Diary of Anne Frank. The Nazis were not the first people to decide that Jews needed to be isolated and killed, though that does not make Eva’s story any less disheartening. Stephan was not the first Jewish man trying to achieve something better for his people and, ignoring any possible success or failure on the matter, he is unable to reap any potential rewards for his sacrifices. Othello was destroyed in Shakespeare’s play, but the novel describes his treatment and the internalized racism that led to those fateful events. The three Jews were killed senselessly because of a rumor despite doing everything in their power to survive. Malka, the youngest character in a temporal sense, is merely the latest depiction of the combined racism and anti-Semitism that has ruled the European world for centuries. If modernity were true, then the treatment of all of these characters would improve over linear time and the presence of racism and anti-Semitism would vastly decrease; however, that is not the case. All of these characters also survive a tragedy and/or assimilate if the dominant culture is to be believed; however, the novel demonstrates how monstrously untrue that lie is in actuality.

The Oxford History of the Novel in English

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
English Language ◽  
Book History ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Volume Nine of this series traces the development of the ‘world novel’, that is, English-language novels written throughout the world, beyond Britain, Ireland, and the United States. Focusing on the period up to 1950, the volume contains survey chapters and chapters on major writers, as well as chapters on book history, publishing, and the critical contexts of the work discussed. The text covers periods from renaissance literary imaginings of exotic parts of the world like Oceania, through fiction embodying the ideology and conventions of empire, to the emergence of settler nationalist and Indigenous movements and, finally, the assimilations of modernism at the beginnings of the post-imperial world order. The book, then, contains chapters on the development of the non-metropolitan novel throughout the British world from the eighteenth to the mid twentieth centuries. This is the period of empire and resistance to empire, of settler confidence giving way to doubt, and of the rise of indigenous and post-colonial nationalisms that would shape the world after World War II.

Multidirectional Rememory: Slavery and the Holocaust in John A. Williams’s Clifford’s Blues

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-216
Author(s):  
Mark A. Tabone
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The Novel ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Racialized Violence ◽  
American Author ◽  
Black Queer ◽  
Multidirectional Memory

This article focuses on the representation of history in African American author John A. Williams’s 1999 novel, Clifford’s Blues, a fictional account of a Black, queer American expatriate’s internment and enslavement in a Nazi concentration camp. Through a critical perspective that incorporates the imaginative recovery of (often silenced) history that Toni Morrison (1987) called “rememory,” along with what Holocaust scholar Michael Rothberg (2009) calls “multidirectional memory,” this article details Williams’s daring exploration of spaces of overlap between the histories of American slavery, Jim Crow, and the Nazi Holocaust. The article demonstrates how the novel’s unconventional and controversial emplotment allows Williams to create a distinctive historical critique not only of slavery and the Holocaust but, more broadly, of otherization, racialized violence, and modernity itself, while making a number of historiographic interventions. These include inscribing a largely absent history of the experience of Black people affected by the Holocaust and the mapping of theretofore underacknowledged resonances between American and German ideologies and practices. Through its transnational, transcultural “multidirectionality,” the novel opens up a broad, structural critique of apartheid everywhere; however, this article also argues that the novel also offers models for liberatory communities of resistance. The article demonstrates how Williams accomplishes this through his novel’s allegorical and literal use of the blues.

scholarly journals The End of Modernism: Elias Canetti's "Auto-da-Fé"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Donahue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
Considerable Body

Nobel laureate Elias Canetti wrote his novel "Auto-da-Fé" ("Die Blendung") when he and the twentieth century were still quite young. Rooted in the cultural crises of the Weimar period, "Auto-da-Fé" first received critical acclaim abroad—in England, France, and the United States—where it continues to fascinate readers of subsequent generations. "The End of Modernism" places this work in its cultural and philosophical contexts, situating the novel not only in relation to Canetti's considerable body of social thought, but also within larger debates on Freud and Freudianism, misogyny and modernism's "fragmented subject," anti-Semitism and the failure of humanism, contemporary philosophy and philosophical fads, and traditionalist notions of literature and escapist conceptions of history. "The End of Modernism" portrays "Auto-da-Fé" as an exemplum of "analytic modernism," and in this sense a crucial endpoint in the progression of postwar conceptions of literary modernism.

scholarly journals “It felt better to stay quiet”

Barnboken ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Świetlicki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Role Model ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
Ways Of Coping ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Coping With Trauma

This article analyzes Kathy Kacer’s Masters of Silence (2019), a novel about Marcel Marceau – the renowned mime artist who during the war cooperated with the French Resistance – and two fictional Jewish siblings struggling with the trauma of losing their parents, anti-Semitism, and the suppression of identity in a Catholic convent in southern France. The author examines the narrative techniques used by Kacer, including the combination of fiction with history and some elements of the biography of Marceau, and demonstrates that she not only shares the next-generation memory of World War II with her young readers but also depicts nonverbal ways of coping with trauma as potentially effective and empowering. Whereas Kacer’s indifference to historical dates may be connected to her determination to portray Marceau as an adolescent role model, the novel is a successful narrative about trauma and the Holocaust history, and the depiction of Marceau’s acts of resistance does not overshadow the young protagonists who do not just quiver and follow the instructions of the adults but mainly try to gain agency. 

scholarly journals A PROJECT OF CONSTRUCTING A CONTEMPORARY JEWISH IDENTITY IN RABINOVICI’S NOVEL SUCHE NACH M

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisda Liyanti
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
New Phase

Attitude to the Nazi past turns to its new phase in the 1980s, after the time of repressing, silent and mourning brings the new discourse in talking about the Holocaust. It was a tendency of "denying" the Holocaust and new anti-semitism movement. In the 90s, Jewish authors confirm their position as „self-determined agents' in the literary and political area. One of them is Doron Rabinovici, an Austrian Jewish author who wrote the novel Suche Nach M in engaging on the project of constructing a contemporary Jewish identity. In this article, the question of how Robinovici proposes the construction of contemporary Jewish identity will be answered through critical reading on Jewish myth and identity formation theory. The result shows two major strategies that he proposes in his novel: “deconstructs” the Jewish myth (by playing other possibilities to interpret them and unveil the truth) and suggests the self-referential concept (find oneself based on 'the self' instead of immersing self in 'the Other‟). These two strategies can be seen as an active engagement with one own traumatic past. It is a historical- and self-awareness approach to construct a problematic contemporary Jewish identity.

scholarly journals Gustav Meyrink’s 'Golem' and Leo Perutz’s 'Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke': A literary expression of the Jewish experience during the twentieth century

SURG Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-45
Author(s):  
Caitlin Vito
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Literary Expression ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Jewish Experience ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Authority Figures

Gustav Meyrink’s novel Der Golem [The Golem], published in 1915, and Leo Perutz’s 1953 novel Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke [By Night under the Stone Bridge] communicate the authors’ image of the Jewish experience and treatment during the period of the twentieth century. Uncanny and fantastical elements are used throughout both texts to help portray the Jewish condition. Meyrink conveys the animosity between nationalistic Jews and middle-class assimilated Jews and highlights the rising anti-Semitism among Gentiles by associating Jews with the decay and corruption of modernity. At the same time, however, Jews are also depicted as a model of higher spirituality. Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke places the Holocaust within the greater context of Jewish history and conveys Perutz’s assessment that the tragedy of the Holocaust is one in a series of devastating events which have plagued the Jewish people. Moreover, the text casts doubt on the benevolence of Jewish and non-Jewish authority figures and even the mercifulness of God. The doubt raised in the novel regarding central Jewish beliefs mirrors the Jewish experience of disorientation and confusion following the horrors of the Holocaust. Perutz also conveys the need for Jewish history to be passed down to future generations as it is their past which helps form their Jewish identity. Keywords: Der Golem [The Golem] (Meyrink, Gustav); Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke [By Night under the Stone Bridge] (Perutz, Leo); Jewish experience (portrayal of); twentieth century; uncanny and fantastical literature; literary interpretation

2. The Yiddish self

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Ilan Stavans
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
World War ◽  
Yiddish Literature ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Second World

“The Yiddish self” analyzes the emergence and dissemination of Yiddish as the lingua franca of eastern European Jews from the thirteenth century to the Holocaust and beyond, focusing on the three founders of Yiddish literature: Mendele Mokher Sforim, Israel Joshua Singer, and Sholem Aleichem. Sholem Aleichem’s volume of interconnected stories Tevye the Dairyman is arguably the most important narrative ever to be produced in the Yiddish language. Yiddish writers have reflected on anti-Semitism and migration. Yiddish writing in the United States, Latin America, and other parts of the world and the Singer siblings (Israel Joshua, and Isaac Bashevis) in particular are examples of adaptation to different environments after the Second World War.

The End of Modernism: Elias Canetti's "Auto-da-Fé"

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Collins Donahue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
Considerable Body

Nobel laureate Elias Canetti wrote his novel Auto-da-Fé (Die Blendung) when he and the twentieth century were still quite young. Rooted in the cultural crises of the Weimar period, Auto-da-Fé first received critical acclaim abroad—in England, France, and the United States—where it continues to fascinate readers of subsequent generations. The End of Modernism places this work in its cultural and philosophical contexts, situating the novel not only in relation to Canetti's considerable body of social thought, but also within larger debates on Freud and Freudianism, misogyny and modernism's "fragmented subject" anti-Semitism and the failure of humanism, contemporary philosophy and philosophical fads, and traditionalist notions of literature and escapist conceptions of history. The End of Modernism portrays Auto-da-Fé as an exemplum of "analytic modernism," and in this sense a crucial endpoint in the progression of postwar conceptions of literary modernism.

Out of the Whirlwind Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michael Berkowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mutual Accountability ◽  
Union College

This article argues that Albert Friedlander’s edited book, Out of the Whirlwind (1968), should be recognised as pathbreaking. Among the first to articulate the idea of ‘Holocaust literature’, it established a body of texts and contextualised these as a way to integrate literature – as well as historical writing, music, art and poetry – as critical to an understanding of the Holocaust. This article also situates Out of the Whirlwind through the personal history of Friedlander and his wife Evelyn, who was a co-creator of the book, his colleagues from Hebrew Union College, and the illustrator, Jacob Landau. It explores the work’s connection to the expansive, humanistic development of progressive Judaism in the United States, Britain and continental Europe. It also underscores Friedlander’s study of Leo Baeck as a means to understand the importance of mutual accountability, not only between Jews, but in Jews’ engagement with the wider world.

Breaking Free

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre David
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Male Homosexuality ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
The Family

In the mid- to late 1950s, Pamela emerged as a critically acclaimed novelist, particularly after the family returned to London. In perhaps her best-known novel, The Unspeakable Skipton, she explores the life of a paranoid writer who sponges on English visitors to Bruges. The novel was hailed for its wit and sensitive depiction of the life of a writer. She also published a fine study of a London vicar martyred in marriage to a vain and selfish wife: The Humbler Creation is remarkable for its incisive and empathetic depiction of male despair. The Last Resort sealed her distinction as a brilliant novelist of domestic life in its frank depiction of male homosexuality. While continuing to publish fiction, Pamela maintained her reputation as a deft reviewer. In 1954, she and Charles travelled to the United States—the first of many trips that were to follow.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document