Living On: Responses to the Holocaust

Living On: Responses to the Holocaust is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies class taught by Jeffrey Wallen.

Course Description
In this course we will examine the paradoxes of telling stories of--and after--the Holocaust. Questions of how to tell the story of the Holocaust remain of central significance in postwar secular Jewish (and non-Jewish) culture. Who can tell the story: the survivor who bears witness? the archive of impersonal bureaucratic documents? children haunted by the experiences of their parents? the writer troubled by her country's repression of the past? We will contrast Israeli, German, and American narrative responses. Is it even possible to tell the story? The (im)possibility of bearing witness is a central philosophical question for philosophers such as Derrida, Agamben, and Blanchot. What uses should be made of the story? How has the demand for remembering and commemoration affected Jewish culture? Or conversely, do we now need to forget the Holocaust (as some Israelis are arguing)? To bring people to justice (Nuremberg trials) or to confront people with their history (the Eichmann trial)?