Without Alibi

Without Alibi PDF Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804744119
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This book brings together for the first time five recent essays by Jacques Derrida, which advance his reflections on many issues: lying, perjury, forgiveness, confession, the profession of faith, and, most recently, cruelty, sovereignty, and capital punishment. Strongly linked by their attention to "performatives" and the "as if," the essays show the necessity of thinking beyond the category of acts that are possible for a subject. Derrida argues forcefully that thought must engage with the im-possible, that is, the order of the unforeseeable event, the absolute future still to come. This acute awareness of the limits of performative programs informs the essays throughout and attunes them closely to events of a world undergoing "globalization." The first essay, "History of the Lie," reviews some classic and modern definitions of the lie (Augustine, Rousseau, Kant, Koyré, Arendt), while renewing questions about what is called lying, as distinguished from other forms of nontruth. This inventive analysis is followed by "Typewriter Ribbon," which examines at length the famous lie recounted by Rousseau in his Confessions, when he perjured himself by accusing another of his own crime. Paul de Man's reading of this textual event is at the center of Derrida's patient, at times seriously funny analyses. "Le parjure, Perhaps" engages with a remarkable novel by Henri Thomas that fictionalizes the charge of perjury brought against Paul de Man in the 1950s. Derrida's extraordinary fineness as a reader and thinker of fiction here treats, to profound effect, the "fatal experience of perjury." The two final essays, "The University Without Condition" and "Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul," address the institutions of the university and of psychoanalysis as sites from which to resist and deconstruct the nontruth or phantasm of sovereignty. For the university, the principle of truth remains at the core of its resistance; for psychoanalysis, there is the obligation to remain true to what may be, Derrida suggests, its specific insight: into psychic cruelty. Resistance to the sovereign cruelty of the death penalty is just one of the stakes indicated by the last essay, which is the text of a keynote address to the "States General of Psychoanalysis" held in Paris, July 2000. Especially for this volume, Derrida has written "Provocation: Forewords," which reflects on the title Without Alibi while taking up questions about relations between deconstruction and America. This essay-foreword also responds to the event of this book, which Peggy Kamuf in her introduction presents as event of resistance. Without Alibi joins two other books by Derrida that Kamuf has translated for Stanford University Press: Points . . .: Interviews, 1974-1994 (1994) and Resistances of Psychoanalysis (1998).

Without Alibi

Without Alibi PDF Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804744119
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book brings together for the first time five recent essays by Jacques Derrida, which advance his reflections on many issues: lying, perjury, forgiveness, confession, the profession of faith, and, most recently, cruelty, sovereignty, and capital punishment. Strongly linked by their attention to "performatives" and the "as if," the essays show the necessity of thinking beyond the category of acts that are possible for a subject. Derrida argues forcefully that thought must engage with the im-possible, that is, the order of the unforeseeable event, the absolute future still to come. This acute awareness of the limits of performative programs informs the essays throughout and attunes them closely to events of a world undergoing "globalization." The first essay, "History of the Lie," reviews some classic and modern definitions of the lie (Augustine, Rousseau, Kant, Koyré, Arendt), while renewing questions about what is called lying, as distinguished from other forms of nontruth. This inventive analysis is followed by "Typewriter Ribbon," which examines at length the famous lie recounted by Rousseau in his Confessions, when he perjured himself by accusing another of his own crime. Paul de Man's reading of this textual event is at the center of Derrida's patient, at times seriously funny analyses. "Le parjure, Perhaps" engages with a remarkable novel by Henri Thomas that fictionalizes the charge of perjury brought against Paul de Man in the 1950s. Derrida's extraordinary fineness as a reader and thinker of fiction here treats, to profound effect, the "fatal experience of perjury." The two final essays, "The University Without Condition" and "Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul," address the institutions of the university and of psychoanalysis as sites from which to resist and deconstruct the nontruth or phantasm of sovereignty. For the university, the principle of truth remains at the core of its resistance; for psychoanalysis, there is the obligation to remain true to what may be, Derrida suggests, its specific insight: into psychic cruelty. Resistance to the sovereign cruelty of the death penalty is just one of the stakes indicated by the last essay, which is the text of a keynote address to the "States General of Psychoanalysis" held in Paris, July 2000. Especially for this volume, Derrida has written "Provocation: Forewords," which reflects on the title Without Alibi while taking up questions about relations between deconstruction and America. This essay-foreword also responds to the event of this book, which Peggy Kamuf in her introduction presents as event of resistance. Without Alibi joins two other books by Derrida that Kamuf has translated for Stanford University Press: Points . . .: Interviews, 1974-1994 (1994) and Resistances of Psychoanalysis (1998).

Holocaust Literature: Agosín to Lentin

Holocaust Literature: Agosín to Lentin PDF Author: S. Lillian Kremer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis US
ISBN: 0415929830
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
Review: "This encyclopedia offers an authoritative and comprehensive survey of the important writers and works that form the literature about the Holocaust and its consequences. The collection is alphabetically arranged and consists of high-quality biocritical essays on 309 writers who are first-, second-, and third-generation survivors or important thinkers and spokespersons on the Holocaust. An essential literary reference work, this publication is an important addition to the genre and a solid value for public and academic libraries."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004

Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1945

Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1945 PDF Author: Valerie Estelle Frankel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 179363713X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Science fiction first emerged in the Industrial Age and continued to develop into its current form during the twentieth century. This book analyses the role Jewish writers played in the process of its creation and development. The author provides a comprehensive overview, bridging such seemingly disparate themes and figures as the ghetto legends of the golem and their influence on both Frankenstein and robots, the role of, Jewish authors and publishers in developing the first science fiction magazine in New York in the 1930s, and their later contributions to new and developing medial forms like comics and film. Drawing on the historical context and the positions Jews held in the larger cultural environment, the author illustrates how themes and tropes in science fiction and fantasy relate back to the realities of Jewish life in the face of global anti-Semitism, the struggle to assimilate in America, and the hope that was inspired by the founding of Israel.

Belsen

Belsen PDF Author: Joanne Reilly
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415138277
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The military and medical liberation and British government and British population response to the disclosure of what occurred at Belsen.

Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss

Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss PDF Author: Peter Graf Kielmansegg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521599368
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This volume on Hannah Arendt's and Leo Strauss' impact on American political science after 1933 contains essays presented at an international conference held at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1991. The book explores the influence that Arendt's and Strauss' experiences of inter-war Germany had on their perception of democracy and their judgment of American liberal democracy. Although they represented different political attitudes, both thinkers interpreted the modern American political system as a response to totalitarianism. The contributors analyse how their émigré experience both influenced their American work and also had an impact on the formation of the discipline of political science in postwar Germany. Arendt's and Strauss' experiences thus aptly illustrate the transfer and transformation of political ideas in the World War II era.

Facing the Abyss

Facing the Abyss PDF Author: George Hutchinson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545967
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
Mythologized as the era of the “good war” and the “Greatest Generation,” the 1940s are frequently understood as a more heroic, uncomplicated time in American history. Yet just below the surface, a sense of dread, alienation, and the haunting specter of radical evil permeated American art and literature. Writers returned home from World War II and gave form to their disorienting experiences of violence and cruelty. They probed the darkness that the war opened up and confronted bigotry, existential guilt, ecological concerns, and fear about the nature and survival of the human race. In Facing the Abyss, George Hutchinson offers readings of individual works and the larger intellectual and cultural scene to reveal the 1940s as a period of profound and influential accomplishment. Facing the Abyss examines the relation of aesthetics to politics, the idea of universalism, and the connections among authors across racial, ethnic, and gender divisions. Modernist and avant-garde styles were absorbed into popular culture as writers and artists turned away from social realism to emphasize the process of artistic creation. Hutchinson explores a range of important writers, from Saul Bellow and Mary McCarthy to Richard Wright and James Baldwin. African American and Jewish novelists critiqued racism and anti-Semitism, women writers pushed back on the misogyny unleashed during the war, and authors such as Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams reflected a new openness in the depiction of homosexuality. The decade also witnessed an awakening of American environmental and ecological consciousness. Hutchinson argues that despite the individualized experiences depicted in these works, a common belief in art’s ability to communicate the universal in particulars united the most important works of literature and art during the 1940s. Hutchinson’s capacious view of American literary and cultural history masterfully weaves together a wide range of creative and intellectual expression into a sweeping new narrative of this pivotal decade.

The National Council for Civil Liberties and the policing of interwar politics

The National Council for Civil Liberties and the policing of interwar politics PDF Author: Janet Clark
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526129582
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Issues around the policing of public order and political expression are as topical today as in the past, and are likely to remain so in the future. Janet Clark explores the origins of the National Council for Civil Liberties (the precursor to Liberty) that emerged in 1934 in protest at the policing of political extremes. The book deals with police attempts to discredit the NCCL and the use of intelligence to perpetuate a view of the organisation as a front for the Communist Party. It also examines the state and police responses to this organised criticism of police powers. This book is essential reading for students and lecturers studying British social history, the development of civil liberties and of policing in Britain, as well as anyone interested in this enduring topic. Included is a foreword by Clive Emsley, Emeritus Professor in History at the Open University, and widely regarded as the doyen of police history.

Holocaust and Rescue

Holocaust and Rescue PDF Author: P. Shatzkes
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230598412
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This book challenges the widely held view which condemns as weak and half-hearted Anglo-Jewish efforts on behalf of European Jews during the Nazi period. Anglo-Jewish organizations achieved remarkable successes in the pre-war years, combining their administrative expertise with the financial guarantee of maintenance to accomplish the rescue of over fifty thousand refugees. By tragic contrast, their lack of political and diplomatic experience during wartime rendered them almost entirely incapable of influencing an intransigent government engaged in global war to save Jewish lives.

Rekindling the Flame

Rekindling the Flame PDF Author: Alex Grobman
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814324134
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
A study of American Jewish chaplains in displaced persons' camps after World War II, Rekindling the Flame provides a historical analysis of the survivors' impact on American Jewish chaplains and indirectly on American Jewry. This critical and controversial study examines not only the adequacy of the response by the U.S. government and military to the survivors, but also the American Jewish response. Grobman concludes that the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee the Jewish organization most responsible for providing aid to the survivors, did not adequately respond. Rekindling the Flame is based on several sources including chaplains' reports and other records; oral interviews with chaplains, their assistants, American soldiers, and Holocaust survivors; diaries and personal correspondence of chaplains; and archives in the United States, Israel, and Europe.

In War's Wake

In War's Wake PDF Author: Gerard Daniel Cohen
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195399684
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
After WWII, Europe was awash in refugees. Never in modern times had so many been so destitute and displaced. No longer subjects of a single nation-state, this motley group of enemies and victims consisted of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, ex-Soviet POWs, ex-forced laborers in the Third Reich, legions of people who fled the advancing Red Army, and many thousands uprooted by the sheer violence of the war. This book argues that postwar international relief operations went beyond their stated goal of civilian "rehabilitation" and contributed to the rise of a new internationalism, setting the terms on which future displaced persons would be treated by nations and NGOs.