Description
Berel Lang has achieved in these essays a remarkable and compelling piece of philosophical literary criticism. He aims for nothing less than a demonstration that writings on the Holocaust, however imaginative, cannot escape the form or fact of the history of that event. There is, in this unique case, an internal relationship between truth and poetic representation. It is a powerful and sobering analysis of the limits of art. -- Arthur C. Danto, Columbia University With his profound philosophical grasp of both aesthetic and ethical issues at play in Holocaust literature and art, Berel Lang brings great clarity to the very difficult and complex issues surrounding Holocaust representation-whether by survivors or by the next generation. -- James E. Young, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Displaying at once the intellectual precision of a philosopher, the verbal sensitivity of a literary critic, and the concreteness of a historian, Berel Lang has produced an immensely appealing book that will attract readers throughout the humanities. Holocaust Representation brilliantly rethinks and redirects that flourishing new genre, the book about Holocaust writing. -- Herbert Lindenberger, Stanford University Berel Lang offers a compellingly original, subtle, and provocative meditation on those historical and ethical constraints that invariably limit the representation of the 'unrepresentable,' the speaking of the 'unspeakable.' Joining philosophical inquiry and historical analysis, literary criticism and art history, Lang presents a new interpretation of the 'blurring'-of literary genres, of artistic forms, of historical discourses, of stylistic conventions-that, in the afterwards of history and memory, extreme trauma imposes on representation. -- Richard Stamelman, Williams College Berel Lang's writings on Holocaust representations reveal the broad range of aesthetic and ethical complexities that define this important subject. Lang's essays, historically informed and critically astute, warrant and will amply reward the most careful reading. -- Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Indiana University
About the Author
Berel Lang is a professor of humanities at Trinity College. His many books include Writing and the Moral Self, Mind's Bodies: Thought in the Act, Heidegger's Silence, and Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide.
Reviews
Holocaust Representation tackles the thorny subject of ethics and art as they bear on works commemorating or referring to the Holocaust. -- James Malpas Art Newspaper
Book Information
ISBN 9780801877452
Author Berel Lang
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 10mm