| Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive Revised Edition Contributor(s): Agamben, Giorgio (Author), Heller-Roazen, Daniel (Translator) |
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ISBN: 189095117X ISBN-13: 9781890951177 Publisher: Zone Books OUR PRICE: $21.56 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2002 Annotation: In this book the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben looks closely at the literature of the survivors of Auschwitz, probing the philosophical and ethical questions raised by their testimony. "In its form, this book is a kind of perpetual commentary on testimony. It did not seem possible to proceed otherwise. At a certain point, it became clear that testimony contained at its core an essential lacuna; in other words, the survivors bore witness to something it is impossible to bear witness to. As a consequence, commenting on survivors' testimony necessarily meant interrogating this lacuna or, more precisely, attempting to listen to it. Listening to something absent did not prove fruitless work for this author. Above all, it made it necessary to clear away almost all the doctrines that, since Auschwitz, have been advanced in the name of ethics." --Giorgio Agamben |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Holocaust - Philosophy | Ethics & Moral Philosophy |
| Dewey: 940.531 |
| LCCN: 99026013 |
| Series: Zone Books |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.65 lbs) 176 pages |
| Themes: - Topical - Holocaust |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: "In its form, this book is a kind of perpetual commentary on testimony. It did not seem possible to proceed otherwise. At a certain point, it became clear that testimony contained at its core an essential lacuna; in other words, the survivors bore witness to something it is impossible to bear witness to. As a consequence, commenting on survivors' testimony necessarily meant interrogating this lacuna or, more precisely, attempting to listen to it. Listening to something absent did not prove fruitless work for this author. Above all, it made it necessary to clear away almost all the doctrines that, since Auschwitz, have been advanced in the name of ethics. For my own part, I will consider myself content with my work if, in attempting to locate the place and theme of testimony, I have erected some signposts allowing future cartographers of the new ethical territory to orient themselves. Indeed, I will be satisfied if Remnants of Auschwitz succeeds only in correcting some of the terms with which we register the decisive lesson of the century and if this book makes it possible for certain words to be left behind and others to be understood in a different sense. This is also a way -- perhaps the only way -- to listen to what is unsaid."-- Giorgio Agamben |
Contributor Bio(s): Agamben, Giorgio: - Giorgio Agamben is one of the leading figures in Italian philosophy. He is the author of Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life; Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive; Profanations; The Signature of All Things: On Method (the last three published by Zone Books), and other books.Heller-Roazen, Daniel: - Daniel Heller-Roazen is the Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature and the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language, The Inner Touch: Archaeology of a Sensation, The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations, and The Fifth Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World, all published by Zone Books. |