Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization

405 Pages·2.544 MB·English

by  Michael Rothberg

multidirectional memory

Cultural Memory
in
the
Present
Mieke Bal and Hent de Vries, Editors

Multidirectional MeMory
Remembering the Holocaust in the
Age of Decolonization
Michael rothberg
stanford university press
stanford, california
2009
Stanford university Press
Stanford, california
© 2009 by the Board of trustees of the leland Stanford Junior university.
all rights reserved.
chapter 4 was originally published as “W. e. B. du Bois in Warsaw: Holocaust
Memory and the color line, 1949–1952,” The Yale Journal of Criticism 14, no.
1 (2001): 169–89. © yale university and the Johns Hopkins university Press.
reprinted with permission of the Johns Hopkins university Press. Parts of chapter
5 were originally published as “Writing ruins: the anachronistic aesthetics of an-
dré Schwarz-Bart,” After Representation? The Holocaust, Literature, and Culture, ed.
r. clifton Spargo and robert ehrenreich. new Brunswick, nJ: rutgers university
Press, 2009. reprinted by permission of rutgers university Press. chapter 6 was
originally published as “the Work of testimony in the age of decolonization,”
PMLA 119, no. 5 (2004): 1231–46. reprinted by permission of the copyright owner,
the Modern language association of america. chapter 7 was originally published
as “Between auschwitz and algeria,” Critical Inquiry 33, no. 1 (2006): 158–84.
reprinted by permission of Critical Inquiry and the university of chicago.
this book has been published with the assistance of the Program in Jewish culture
and Society at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign.
no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information-storage or -retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford university Press.
Printed in the united States of america on acid-free, archival-quality paper.
library of congress cataloging-in-Publication data
rothberg, Michael.
Multidirectional memory : remembering the Holocaust in the age of
decolonization / Michael rothberg.
p. cm.—(cultural memory in the present)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBn 978-0-8047-6217-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
iSBn 978-0-8047-6218-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Historiography. 2. Holocaust,
Jewish (1939–1945), in literature. 3. decolonization—
Historiography. 4. decolonization in literature. 5. collective
memory. 6. collective memory in literature. i. title. ii. Series.
d804.348.r67 2009
940.53’18072—dc22
2008041759
Yasemin’e—aujourd’hui et demain

Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
1 introduction: theorizing Multidirectional Memory
in a transnational age 1
part i: boomerang effects: bare life, trauma,
and the colonial turn in holocaust studies
2 at the limits of eurocentrism: Hannah arendt’s
The Origins of Totalitarianism 33
3 “un choc en retour”: aimé césaire’s discourses
on colonialism and Genocide 66
part ii: migrations of memory: ruins, ghettos,
diasporas
4 W. e. B. du Bois in Warsaw: Holocaust Memory
and the color line 111
5 anachronistic aesthetics: andré Schwarz-Bart and
caryl Phillips on the ruins of Memory 135
part iii: truth, torture, testimony: holocaust
memory during the algerian war
6 the Work of testimony in the age of decolonization:
Chronicle of a Summer and the emergence of the
Holocaust Survivor 175