Frontmatter

Dominick LaCapra

Chapter Publicly Available

Frontmatter

Dominick LaCapra
Dominick LaCapra

Search for this author in:

De Gruyter De Gruyter Brill | Google Scholar

Download chapter

Published by

View more publications by Cornell University Press

To Publisher Page

This chapter is in the book Representing the Holocaust

Representing the Holocaust

By the same author Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Philosopher A Preface to Sartre Madame Bovary on Trial Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language History & Criticism History, Politics, and the Novel Soundings in Critical Theory Editor The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance Coeditor Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives

HISTORY, THEORY, TRAUMA REPRESENTING THE HOLOCAUST Dominick LaCapra Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 1994 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 51Z East State Street, Ithaca, New York 1485°. First published 1994 by Cornell University Press. First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1996. Printed in the United States of America § The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data LaCapra, Dominick, 1939-Representing the Holocaust: history, theory, trauma I Dominick LaCapra. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-z997-8 (cloth).-ISBN 0-8014-8187-z (paper) I. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Historiography. I. Title. D804·3·Ln 1994 940·53'18'07z-dczo 93-33885

With deepest affection, for Rae, Faye, and Harry

As we already know, the interdependence of the complicated problems of the mind forces us to break off every enquiry before it is completed-till the outcome of some other enquiry can come to its assistance. -Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia" The Holocaust threatens a secular as well as a religious gospel, faith in reason and progress as well as Christianity. It points, in that sense and that sense only, to a religious upheaval. It challenges the credibility of redemptive thinking. . . . Our sefer hashoah [the response to the missing Book of Destruction commissioned from seventy elders by a king "who made himself sick reading and reading, and decreed that there be no more accounts of the destruction"] will have to accomplish the impossible: allow the limits of representation to be healing limits yet not allow them to conceal an event we are obligated to recall and interpret, both to ourselves and those growing up unconscious of its shadow. -Geoffrey H. Hartman, "The Book of Destruction"

Representing the Holocaust

By the same author Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Philosopher A Preface to Sartre Madame Bovary on Trial Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language History & Criticism History, Politics, and the Novel Soundings in Critical Theory Editor The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance Coeditor Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives

HISTORY, THEORY, TRAUMA REPRESENTING THE HOLOCAUST Dominick LaCapra Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 1994 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 51Z East State Street, Ithaca, New York 1485°. First published 1994 by Cornell University Press. First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1996. Printed in the United States of America § The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data LaCapra, Dominick, 1939-Representing the Holocaust: history, theory, trauma I Dominick LaCapra. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-z997-8 (cloth).-ISBN 0-8014-8187-z (paper) I. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Historiography. I. Title. D804·3·Ln 1994 940·53'18'07z-dczo 93-33885

With deepest affection, for Rae, Faye, and Harry

As we already know, the interdependence of the complicated problems of the mind forces us to break off every enquiry before it is completed-till the outcome of some other enquiry can come to its assistance. -Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia" The Holocaust threatens a secular as well as a religious gospel, faith in reason and progress as well as Christianity. It points, in that sense and that sense only, to a religious upheaval. It challenges the credibility of redemptive thinking. . . . Our sefer hashoah [the response to the missing Book of Destruction commissioned from seventy elders by a king "who made himself sick reading and reading, and decreed that there be no more accounts of the destruction"] will have to accomplish the impossible: allow the limits of representation to be healing limits yet not allow them to conceal an event we are obligated to recall and interpret, both to ourselves and those growing up unconscious of its shadow. -Geoffrey H. Hartman, "The Book of Destruction"