Rethinking Holocaust Literature: Contexts, Canons, Circulations

随着最后幸存者的去世，纳粹对欧洲犹太人的种族灭绝终于真正成为历史。然而，反犹太主义和其他种族偏见、仇恨言论和暴力仍然无处不在，而且确实在激增。在种族和宗教冲突、平民主义、社会和经济不稳定甚至大流行病的背景下，大屠杀被各种各样地援引为历史的警告;促进甚至执行普遍人权的道德、法律的和政治必要性;以及社会和文化上的争议，从堕胎，动物权利，对大屠杀的文学回应极大地塑造了全球对种族灭绝的认识。安妮·弗兰克、埃利·威克姆和普里莫·列维是最常被引用的人，他们的作品广为流传。然而，构成大屠杀文学的作品数量要多得多，这些作品是几十年来以各种语言在世界各地创作的。随着正典的扩展，学者们已经确定了更多的证词，纪录片，诗歌，小说和其他形式的范例。这些作品通常被安排在传统的民族、时期和体裁类别中，在大屠杀的背景下，考虑到事件的跨国和跨时代性质以及文学对它们的反应，这些类别可能或多或少是人为的。在对单个文本的分析中，重点主要集中在作者自己的大屠杀经历、再现的真实性、道德反应、创伤的代际传递或形式创新上。本项目旨在将大屠杀文学（HL）理论化为一个文学系统，该系统由不同经历、地理和语言之间的权力、资源和特权的不平等所定义。在第一阶段，该项目的国际多语言团队将巩固和批判性地评估人道主义研究的最新发展，例如性别;少数民族语言;交叉性;代表性不足的地点和大规模杀戮的方法;翻译和出版业的作用等。在第二阶段，我们将建立在世界文学，后殖民研究，和犹太研究，探讨文本如何成为大屠杀文学。重点放在上下文，大炮和流通的关键概念，我们将比较不同的地理和语言：1。人道主义文本在不同时间和不同地点产生的社会、政治和文化条件; 2. HL文本成为规范的机制; 3. HL文本如何在跨国和全球范围内传播，并在不断变化的记忆话语中产生影响。虽然在这些领域的开创性工作已经出现在过去的十年中，这个项目将是第一个接近HL作为一个文学系统，比较和规模，以提供令人信服的证据之间的相互作用的情况下，佳能，流通和这种相互作用如何可以打破，产生意想不到的结果，或被颠覆。该项目承诺对HL的建设，个人作品和框架项目的文学理论辩论的新见解。该项目将通过在线和面对面的研讨会以及国际顾问委员会共同迭代创建。主要成果是剑桥大屠杀文学史，作为自1933年以来HL的数量，多样性和宪法的权威调查委托CUP。在第三阶段，这本书将得到补充，编辑一卷针对学生的示范性读物，一个国际公众参与方案，并在犹太研究协会传播。总之，这些成果将有助于巩固HL的研究，多样化的HL佳能，丰富的理论辩论，和非殖民化的课程。将对三名项目开发和评估助理进行编辑、国际合作和项目管理方面的培训。

With the passing of the final survivors, the Nazi genocide of European Jews is at last truly becoming historical. Yet antisemitic and other racial prejudice, hate speech, and violence are everywhere still present and indeed surging. In the context of ethnic and religious conflict, popularism, social and economic precariousness, and even pandemic, the Holocaust is variously invoked as a warning from history; a moral, legal, and political imperative to promote and even enforce universal human rights; and in social and cultural controversies from abortion, animal rights, and climate change to COVID-19 mask mandates and anti-vaccination misinformation.Literary responses to the Holocaust have significantly shaped global awareness of the genocide. Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi are most often cited and their texts circulate widely. However, there is a vastly larger number of works that constitute Holocaust literature, composed across the decades, in a variety of languages, and around the world. As the canon has expanded, scholars have identified ever more exemplars of testimony, documentary, poetry, fiction, and other forms. Such works are often arranged within the conventional categories of nation, period, and genre that, in the context of the Holocaust, may be more or less artificial given the transnational and trans-epochal nature of the events and the literary response to them. In the analysis of individual texts the focus has largely remained on the author's own Holocaust experience, the authenticity of the representation, the moral response, the intergenerational transmission of trauma, or formal innovations.This project aims to theorise Holocaust Literature (HL) as a literary system defined by inequalities of power, resources, and privilege between different experiences, geographies, and languages. In Phase 1, the project's international, multi-lingual team will consolidate and critically assess recent developments in HL research, e.g. gender; minor languages; intersectionality; underrepresented sites and methods of mass killing; the role of translation and the publishing industry, etc. In Phase 2, we will build on new thinking in World Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and Jewish Studies to explore how texts BECOME Holocaust Literature. Focussing on the key concepts of context, canons, and circulations, we will compare across geographies and languages: 1. the social, political, and cultural conditions under which HL texts are produced at different times and in diverse places; 2. the mechanisms by which HL texts become canonical; and 3. how HL texts circulate transnationally and globally and impact within ever-changing memory discourses. While pathbreaking work in each of these areas has appeared in the last decade, this project will be the first to approach HL as a literary system, comparatively and at scale, in order to provide compelling evidence for the interaction between contexts, canons, and circulations and for how this interaction can break down, produce unexpected results, or be subverted. The project promises new insights into the construction of HL, individual works, and the literary-theoretical debates that frame the project.The project will be co-created iteratively through online and face-to-face workshops and with an international Advisory Board. The primary outcome is a Cambridge History of Holocaust Literature, commissioned by CUP as an authoritative investigation of the volume, diversity, and constitution of HL since 1933. The book will be complemented, in Phase 3, by an edited volume of exemplary readings aimed at students, an international public engagement programme, and dissemination at the Association of Jewish Studies. Together, these outcomes will contribute to consolidating HL research, diversifying the HL canon, enriching theoretical debates, and decolonising the curriculum. Three PDRAs will be trained in editing, international collaboration, and project management.