Rethinking Holocaust Literature: Contexts, Canons, Circulations

随着最后一批幸存者的去世，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、民粹主义、社会和经济不稳定甚至大流行的背景下，大屠杀被不同程度地援引为历史的警告；促进甚至强制执行普遍人权的道德、法律和政治必要性；以及从堕胎、动物权利和气候变化到新冠肺炎口罩授权和反疫苗接种的错误信息等社会和文化争议。文学对大屠杀的反应极大地塑造了全球对种族灭绝的认识。安妮·弗兰克、伊莉·威塞尔和普里莫·莱维被引用的次数最多，她们的文章也广为流传。然而，构成大屠杀文学的作品数量要多得多，这些作品跨越了几十年，以各种语言和世界各地的形式创作。随着经典的扩展，学者们已经确定了越来越多的证词、纪录片、诗歌、小说和其他形式的范例。这些作品通常被编排在民族、时期和流派的传统类别中，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这些事件的反应，这些作品可能或多或少是人为的。在对个别文本的分析中，焦点主要集中在作者自己的大屠杀经历、表现的真实性、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)理论化为一个由不同经历、地理和语言之间的权力、资源和特权不平等定义的文学系统。在第一阶段，该项目的国际多语种团队将巩固和批判性地评估HL研究的最新发展，例如性别；次要语言；交叉性；未被充分代表的大规模杀戮地点和方法；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的新思维基础上，探索文本如何成为大屠杀文学。我们将聚焦于语境、经典和循环等关键概念，对不同地域和语言进行比较：1.不同时间、不同地点产生HL文本的社会、政治和文化条件；2.HL文本成为规范的机制；3.HL文本如何在全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。虽然这些领域的开创性工作都是在过去十年中出现的，但这个项目将是第一个将HL作为一个文学系统进行比较和规模的研究，以便提供令人信服的证据，说明上下文、正典和循环之间的相互作用，以及这种相互作用如何被打破、产生意想不到的结果或被颠覆。该项目承诺对HL的建设、个人作品以及构成该项目的文学理论辩论提供新的见解。该项目将通过在线和面对面的研讨会以及与国际顾问委员会迭代地共同创建。主要成果是《剑桥大屠杀文学史》，由CUP委托，作为自1933年以来HL的数量、多样性和构成的权威调查。在第三阶段，这本书将得到针对学生的模范读物编辑卷、国际公众参与方案以及在犹太研究协会的传播的补充。总而言之，这些成果将有助于巩固HL研究，使HL经典多样化，丰富理论辩论，并使课程去殖民化。将对三名PDRA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.