This course is divided into three parts, loosely delimited as follows: 1944-1948; 1974-1985; 1995 to the present day. The first part focuses on the artistic and literary production that followed immediately in the wake of the Second World War bearing witness to the realities of the concentration camps. This material is profoundly marked by the traumatic nature of these years and in many respects, it fell on ‘deaf ears’ when it was first produced, too disturbing, too distressing to reach wide audiences. The second part of the course will deal with the time lag thus generated in the reception of Holocaust testimony and the questions about transmission that this raises. It starts with work that mediated by one-generational remove, or by a decision to delay publication/production. It follows with material that emerges after much wider and, in France, official recognition of the multi-layered implications of French responsibility in the deportation to the death and labour camps under Nazi rule. This material is often marked by pedagogical and reconstructive objectives. It also intersects with increasing attention to the expressions and ramifications of trauma and traumatized memory more generally, in particular to how concepts of genocide and crimes against humanity have evolved and been invoked in the modern period, through the Nürnberg Charter of 1945 and beyond into considerations of post-colonial legacies.
We will therefore bring these questions up to more recent events, with a final part that will offer students the opportunity to shape their reflection on trauma in relation to situations and cases that are of contemporary concern and question. This might be post-colonial contexts: Algeria, the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, for example, or current debates around the way ‘genocide’ – and urbicide, scholasticide… – in Gaza is currently being perceived, framed, abhorred, as well as the way in which memory and transmission of these events have been mediated in Francophone media in recent years.
Our focus throughout will shift between different types of expression, from artworks (sculpture and painting, in particular), to text, to film, reflecting the gradual dissemination from very ‘intimate’ and singular forms, towards more general vehicles, and finally towards more popular and accessible forms (film and BD), as well as newsmedia.
The materials for the second two thirds are still slightly in flux in a bid to adapt the materials to current questions relating to trauma, to what is considered ‘unspeakable’ or ‘inaudible’ in contemporary societies, particularly but not exclusively in Francophone contexts, but the final sessions here will be fully populated in due course.
Students are requested to purchase a copy of Robert Antelme's, L'Espèce humaine (1947), available in paperback in the TEL collection and Charlotte Delbo's Une Connaissance inutile (Minuit, 1970), and Georges Perec’s W ou le souvenir d’enfance (1975). They are also encouraged to buy François Maspéro's Les Abeilles et la guêpe (2002), although extracts of this text will be made available via Moodle, and if they would like to start with a relatively accessible read, to have a go at Patrick Modiano’s book Dora Bruder (1997).
