The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After

The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz

â€œAfter Auschwitz to write even a single poem is barbaric.â€ The Conflagration of Community challenges Theodor Adornoâ€™s famous statement about aesthetic production after the Holocaust, arguing for the possibility of literature to bear witness to extreme collective and personal experiences. J. Hillis Miller masterfully considers how novels about the Holocaust relate to fictions written before and after it, and uses theories of community from Jean-Luc Nancy and Derrida to explore the dissolution of community bonds in its wake.
Miller juxtaposes readings of books about the Holocaustâ€”Keneallyâ€™s Schindlerâ€™s List, McEwanâ€™s Black Dogs, Spiegelmanâ€™s Maus, and KertÃ©szâ€™s Fatelessnessâ€”with Kafkaâ€™s novels and Morrisonâ€™s Beloved, asking what it means to think of texts as acts of testimony. Throughout, Miller questions the resonance between the difficulty of imagining, understanding, or remembering Auschwitzâ€”a difficulty so often a theme in records of the Holocaustâ€”and the exasperating resistance to clear, conclusive interpretation of these novels. The Conflagration of Community is an eloquent study of literatureâ€™s value to fathoming the unfathomable.
Country USA
Brand University of Chicago Press
Manufacturer The University of Chicago Press
Binding Paperback
ReleaseDate 2011-09-15
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780226527222

Country	USA
Brand	University of Chicago Press
Manufacturer	The University of Chicago Press
Binding	Paperback
ReleaseDate	2011-09-15
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780226527222

The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz

You might also like...