Traumatic Encounters

Paul Eisenstein is Associate Professor of English at Otterbein College.

"Traumatic Encounters is an engaging and erudite study that will be of much use for scholars from a variety of disciplines." — H-Net Reviews (H-German)"Eisenstein's emphatic commitment to a conscientious return-to-self … protects against a tendency for the thinking, acting, suffering self to be completely effaced by the enormity of collective atrocity." — College Literature"…helpfully unsettles some of our most entrenched assumptions." — Journal of Jewish Studies"The 'traumatic encounter' from the book's title is not that of the Holocaust, but the one between two seemingly incompatible events: the Holocaust and Hegelian dialectics. The result is simply shattering: both terms undergo a profound transformation. Gone is the image of Hegel as the great idealist reconciliator who washes away all traumatic cuts; gone is the easy 'Holocaust-industry' manipulation of the ultimate crime of the twentieth century. This alone makes the book a must: a forceful redemption of the power of theory." — Slavoj Zizek"An exceptionally ambitious and timely intervention into contemporary discussions about the ethics of representation after the Holocaust." — Wulf Kansteiner, Binghamton University, State University of New York"Traumatic Encounters offers an innovative (Zizekian/Lacanian) approach to the Holocaust in literature and provides significant insight into an interesting selection of important texts." — David Brenner, Chair of Jewish Studies, Kent State University

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Holocaust Memory and Hegel 2. Obsession and the Meaning of Jewish Rescue: Oskar Schindler as Spirit 3. Hysteria as Deferral: The White Hotel and the Idea of Death 4. Leverkuhn as Witness: The Holocaust in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus 5. History as/and Paranoia: David Grossman's See Under: Love Conclusion Notes Index