A01=J. Hillis Miller
Author_J. Hillis Miller
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Product details
- ISBN 9780226527222
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 15 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 15 Sep 2011
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
"After Auschwitz to write even a single poem is barbaric". "The Conflagration of Community" challenges Theodor Adorno's famous statement about aesthetic production after the Holocaust, arguing for the possibility of literature to bear witness to extreme collective and personal experiences. J. Hillis Miller considers how novels about the Holocaust relate to fictions written before and after it, and uses theories of community from Jean-Luc Nancy and Derrida to explore the dissolution of community bonds in its wake. Miller juxtaposes readings of books about the Holocaust - Keneally's "Schindler's List", McEwan's "Black Dogs", Spiegelman's "Maus", and Kertesz's "Fatelessness" - with Kafka's novels and Morrison's "Beloved", asking what it means to think of texts as acts of testimony. Throughout, Miller questions the resonance between the difficulty of imagining, understanding, or remembering Auschwitz - a difficulty so often a theme in records of the Holocaust - and the exasperating resistance to clear, conclusive interpretation of these novels. "The Conflagration of Community" is an eloquent study of literature's value to fathoming the unfathomable.
J. Hillis Miller is Distinguished Research Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of many books and articles on literature and literary theory, most recently of For Derrida.
