Postcolonialism and the study of anti-semitism

In recent years Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) has become a common point of reference for those within postcolonial studies—such as Paul Gilroy, Aamir Mufti, and Michael Rothberg—who wish to explore the historical intersections between racism, fascism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism. “Postcolonialism and the Study of Anti-Semitism” relates Arendt’s comparative thinking to other anticolonial theorists and camp survivors at the end of the Second World War—most prominently, Jean Améry, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Primo Levi, and Jean-Paul Sartre—who all made connections between the history of genocide in Europe and European colonialism. The article then compares this strand of comparative thought with postcolonial theorists of the 1970s and 1980s who, contra Arendt, divide the histories of fascism and colonialism into separate spheres. It also contrasts postcolonial theory with postcolonial literature by exploring the intertwined histories in the fiction of V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Caryl Phillips. Said’s late turn to Jewish exilic thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Erich Auerbach, and Sigmund Freud is also related to this Arendtian comparative project. The main aim of the article is to promote a more open-minded sense of historical connectedness with regard to the histories of racism, fascism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism

In Memory of the Holocaust: We Have Come a Long Way

Sermon delivered at the 18th Annual Christian Service in Memory of the Holocaust, St Peter\u27s (Erindale) Anglican Church, Mississauga, Ont, April 26, 1998

Bringing the past to heel: History, identity and violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs

Ian McEwan's 1992 novel Black Dogs employs postmodern understandings of history while also critiquing these same perspectives. In particular, by depicting the efforts of its protagonist, Jeremy, to write a memoir of his parents-in-law, it draws attention to the subjectivity of historical writing. While this quality has led some critics to condemn the novel for its escapism and amorality, the authors of the essay argue that Black Dogs is a statement about the necessity of history rather than its futility. Indeed, they read the text as a dramatization of humanity-s ability to bear rather than escape the often troubling burden of the past and an endorsement of the writing of history despite the awareness that historiography, while serving deep-seated human needs, is always problematic

A \u3ci\u3eDr. Strangelove\u3c/i\u3e Situation : Nuclear Anxiety, Presidential Fallibility, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment

This Article is a revisionist history of the ratification of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, which establishes procedures for remedying a vice presidential vacancy and for addressing presidential inability. During the Cold War, questions of presidential succession and the transfer of power in the case of inability were on the public’s mind and, in 1963, these questions became more urgent in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Traditional legal histories of the Amendment argue that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination was both the proximate and prime factor in the development of the Amendment, but they do not account for the pervasive nuclear anxiety inherent in American politics and culture at the time. Oral interviews of key actors, such as former Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, the Amendment’s architect, as well as examination of the Lyndon B. Johnson papers, the files of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, and other previously unexamined archives, offer new insight into the anxiety and thought processes of the President, Congress, and state legislators. With the ratification of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment on February 10, 1967, the nuclear anxiety of the era became ingrained in the Constitution itself. The framers of the Amendment adjusted America’s foundational document not as dictated by a momentary whim but by the exigencies of the times. With the goal of expanding the field of legal history by examining cultural and political factors, this Article argues that nuclear anxiety provides another important explanation for the incorporation of the Amendment

The Stanley Kubrick Archive: A Dossier of New Research

An introduction to a co-edited Dossier of new research from The Stanley Kubrick Archive at University of Arts, Londo

The Deportation Journeys of the Holocaust

Roughly three million Jews were transported to extermination centers by train during the Holocaust.[1] Nearly all who boarded deportation trains were unaware of the fate that awaited them; and for most, fate meant death in a gas chamber.[2] Some, however, did survive. This paper is about that experience. It is a significant endeavor to study the accounts of Holocaust survivors, for through it, one is reminded of how much the victims endured, and that it truly happened—it happened to real individuals at a real time in history. And as they are remembered, may they be rightfully honored. Alfred Mierzejewski, The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich: A History of the German National Railway, 1933-1945 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 115. Roughly three million Jews were transported to extermination centers by train during the Holocaust. Nearly all who boarded deportation trains were unaware of the fate that awaited them; and for most, fate meant death in a gas chamber. Some, however, did survive. This paper is about that experience. It is a significant endeavor to study the accounts of Holocaust survivors, for through it, one is reminded of how much the victims endured, and that it truly happened—it happened to real individuals at a real time in history. And as they are remembered, may they be rightfully honored

Menorah Review (No. 67, Summer/Fall, 2007)

A Poem by Richard E. Sherwin -- Camp Sisters: Women and the Holocaust -- From the Feminist\u27s Corner -- Modern History and Modern Letters -- The Roots of Anti-Semitism -- Noteworthy Book

Uncanny survivors and the Nazi beast: Monstrous imagination in See under: Love

In the past three decades, as writers have grappled with the legacy of the Holocaust and its aftermath, figures of the uncanny—such as ghosts, monsters, and mythic beings—have consistently appeared as salient metaphors in Holocaust fiction. As symbols of the vexed relationship between Jewish past and present, monstrous creatures demand that readers examine what it means to be human in a post-Holocaust universe, a universe that has exhibited an extreme capacity for inhumanity. This essay examines David Grossman’s See Under: Love—especially its renowned first chapter, “Momik”—as one of the most effective Holocaust narratives to employ a monster motif. The “Nazi Beast” and eerie survivors in the novel self-consciously call into question the strategies writers and readers use when wrestling with ideas about postwar trauma. By exploring the ethical and aesthetic implications of Momik’s “Beast” this essay also asks what is gained or lost by using such an overdetermined symbol as the monster to grapple with the equally problematic constructions of both perpetrators and traumatized survivors

“Seek the Light of Love”:Philip Lamantia’s “A Simple Answer to the Enemy”: Then and Now

During the 1940s the poet Philip Lamantia transitioned away from Surrealism to “naturalistic” poetry rooted in spirituality and the mysticism that exists in extraordinary experiences. Some of the subject matter became more sensuous and sociopolitical, and an underlying theme is contempt for government and the evil perpetrated in its name. One of his most overtly political poems, “A Simple Answer to the Enemy” remains applicable today. It makes a case for dissent by laying bare the corrupt agenda of a political order that dehumanizes the public and erodes liberties. Lamantia endorses a revolutionary mindset that rejects mechanistic thinking, aggression, and greed, and encourages us to embrace a philosophy of love and the spirit of compassion