Who Needs Holocaust Studies? Writing Structurally, Reading Corporeally
Who Needs Holocaust Studies? Writing Structurally, Reading Corporeally

Summary/Abstract: In the text I argue that Holocaust studies, to an extent, are part of the global trend within contemporary human studies to include issues such as body of the author, corporeal aspect of a narrative, and autobiographical context etc. in its theory. This trend, however in the case of Holocaust studies remains in close correlation with the paradox inscribed in the genre of a (Holocaust) testimony as the main model for any Holocaust text: being “in” and “out” of it, conveying the “objective” truth and confirming it by virtue of a witness “who was there”. Based on this observation and after quoting examples of Holocaust writing in disciplines such as historiography or literary studies, (considered as specific genres of Holocaust writing, nevertheless governed by narrative rules equal to those present within genres such as diary, novel etc.) I come to the conclusion that the paradox has become the core feature of the discipline which aims to define its own boundaries by creating a separate, yet familiar methodology and language corresponding to the paradoxical ontology of the texts it analyses.

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