Michael Rothberg - Böcker

When it comes to historical violence and contemporary inequality, none of us are completely innocent. We may not be direct agents of harm, but we may still contribute to, inhabit, or benefit from regimes of domination that we neither set up nor control. Arguing that the familiar categories of victim, perpetrator, and bystander do not adequately account for our connection to injustices past and present, Michael Rothberg offers a new theory of political responsibility through the figure of the implicated subject. The Implicated Subject builds on the comparative, transnational framework of Rothberg's influential work on memory to engage in reflection and analysis of cultural texts, archives, and activist movements from such contested zones as transitional South Africa, contemporary Israel/Palestine, post-Holocaust Europe, and a transatlantic realm marked by the afterlives of slavery. As these diverse sites of inquiry indicate, the processes and histories illuminated by implicated subjectivity are legion in our interconnected world. An array of globally prominent artists, writers, and thinkers—from William Kentridge, Hito Steyerl, and Jamaica Kincaid, to Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Judith Butler, and the Combahee River Collective—speak to this interconnection and show how confronting our own implication in difficult histories can lead to new forms of internationalism and long-distance solidarity.

The first anthology to address the relationship between the events of the Nazi genocide and the intellectual concerns of contemporary literary and cultural theory in one substantial and indispensable volume. This agenda-setting reader brings together both classic and new theoretical writings. Wide in its thematic scope, it covers such vital questions as:* Authenticity and experience* Memory and trauma* Historiography and the philosophy of history* Fascism and Nazi antisemitism* Representation and identity formation* Race, gender and genocide* The implications of the Holocaust for theories of the unconscious, ethics, politics and aesthetics The readings, which are fully contextualised by a general introduction, section introductions and bibliographical notes, represent the work of many influential writers and theorists, including Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Cathy Caruth, Saul Friedlander, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Theodor Adorno, Zygmunt Bauman, Paul Gilroy, Jacques Derrida, Hayden White and Shoshana Felman.

Scholars engage the ideas and legacy of Cary Nelson in conversations about the corporate university, teaching, poetry, and activism.At a time when the humanities are suffering crises of funding and legitimacy, Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University provides an alternative vision: a clear-eyed, nondogmatic approach to engaged scholarship and educational activism in the interest of the public good. This collection brings together distinguished and rising cultural studies scholars to explore the ways in which Cary Nelson's work unites scholarship and activism, demonstrating the need for radical engagement in order to democratize the academy and the production of knowledge in and about American culture. Neither a Festschrift nor a tribute, the volume looks at the new directions Nelson's work has inspired in research and activism about the history and politics of the academy, cultural studies, modern American poetry, and graduate pedagogy and mentoring. An engaging afterword by Cary Nelson is also included.

Scholars engage the ideas and legacy of Cary Nelson in conversations about the corporate university, teaching, poetry, and activism.At a time when the humanities are suffering crises of funding and legitimacy, Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University provides an alternative vision: a clear-eyed, nondogmatic approach to engaged scholarship and educational activism in the interest of the public good. This collection brings together distinguished and rising cultural studies scholars to explore the ways in which Cary Nelson's work unites scholarship and activism, demonstrating the need for radical engagement in order to democratize the academy and the production of knowledge in and about American culture. Neither a Festschrift nor a tribute, the volume looks at the new directions Nelson's work has inspired in research and activism about the history and politics of the academy, cultural studies, modern American poetry, and graduate pedagogy and mentoring. An engaging afterword by Cary Nelson is also included.

Multidirectional Memory brings together Holocaust studies and postcolonial studies for the first time. Employing a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book makes a twofold argument about Holocaust memory in a global age by situating it in the unexpected context of decolonization. On the one hand, it demonstrates how the Holocaust has enabled the articulation of other histories of victimization at the same time that it has been declared "unique" among human-perpetrated horrors. On the other, it uncovers the more surprising and seldom acknowledged fact that public memory of the Holocaust emerged in part thanks to postwar events that seem at first to have little to do with it. In particular, Multidirectional Memory highlights how ongoing processes of decolonization and movements for civil rights in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere unexpectedly galvanized memory of the Holocaust. Rothberg engages with both well-known and non-canonical intellectuals, writers, and filmmakers, including Hannah Arendt, Aimé Césaire, Charlotte Delbo, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marguerite Duras, Michael Haneke, Jean Rouch, and William Gardner Smith.

Multidirectional Memory brings together Holocaust studies and postcolonial studies for the first time. Employing a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book makes a twofold argument about Holocaust memory in a global age by situating it in the unexpected context of decolonization. On the one hand, it demonstrates how the Holocaust has enabled the articulation of other histories of victimization at the same time that it has been declared "unique" among human-perpetrated horrors. On the other, it uncovers the more surprising and seldom acknowledged fact that public memory of the Holocaust emerged in part thanks to postwar events that seem at first to have little to do with it. In particular, Multidirectional Memory highlights how ongoing processes of decolonization and movements for civil rights in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere unexpectedly galvanized memory of the Holocaust. Rothberg engages with both well-known and non-canonical intellectuals, writers, and filmmakers, including Hannah Arendt, Aimé Césaire, Charlotte Delbo, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marguerite Duras, Michael Haneke, Jean Rouch, and William Gardner Smith.

When it comes to historical violence and contemporary inequality, none of us are completely innocent. We may not be direct agents of harm, but we may still contribute to, inhabit, or benefit from regimes of domination that we neither set up nor control. Arguing that the familiar categories of victim, perpetrator, and bystander do not adequately account for our connection to injustices past and present, Michael Rothberg offers a new theory of political responsibility through the figure of the implicated subject. The Implicated Subject builds on the comparative, transnational framework of Rothberg's influential work on memory to engage in reflection and analysis of cultural texts, archives, and activist movements from such contested zones as transitional South Africa, contemporary Israel/Palestine, post-Holocaust Europe, and a transatlantic realm marked by the afterlives of slavery. As these diverse sites of inquiry indicate, the processes and histories illuminated by implicated subjectivity are legion in our interconnected world. An array of globally prominent artists, writers, and thinkers—from William Kentridge, Hito Steyerl, and Jamaica Kincaid, to Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Judith Butler, and the Combahee River Collective—speak to this interconnection and show how confronting our own implication in difficult histories can lead to new forms of internationalism and long-distance solidarity.

The first anthology to address the relationship between the events of the Nazi genocide and the intellectual concerns of contemporary literary and cultural theory in one substantial and indispensable volume.This agenda-setting reader brings together both classic and new writings to demonstrate how concerns arising from the Nazi genocide shaped contemporary literary and cultural theory. Wide in its thematic scope, it covers such vital questions as: - Authenticity and experience - Memory and trauma - Historiography and the philosophy of history - Fascism and Nazi anti-Semitism - Representation and identity formation - Race, gender, and genocide - Implications of the Holocaust for theories of the unconscious, ethics, politics, and aestheticsThe readings, which are fully contextualized by a general introduction, section introductions, and bibliographical notes, represent the work of many influential writers and theorists, including Theodor Adorno, Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman, Walter Benjamin, Cathy Caruth, Jacques Derrida, Shoshana Felman, Saul Friedlander, Paul Gilroy, Lawrence Langer, Emmanuel Levinas, Primo Levi, Jean-FranÇois Lyotard, Hayden White, and James E. Young. This multidisciplinary anthology will be welcomed by students and scholars of the Holocaust.

Analyzes the impact of historical trauma on contemporary culture.How to approach the Holocaust and its relationship to late twentieth-century society? While some stress the impossibility of comprehending this event, others attempt representations in forms as different as the nonfiction novel (and Hollywood blockbuster) Schindler’s List, the documentary Shoah, and the comic book Maus. This problem is at the center of Michael Rothberg’s book, a focused account of the psychic, intellectual, and cultural aftermath of the Holocaust.Drawing on a wide range of texts, Michael Rothberg puts forth an overarching framework for understanding representations of the Holocaust. Through close readings of such writers and thinkers as Theodor Adorno, Maurice Blanchot, Ruth KlÜger, Charlotte Delbo, Art Spiegelman, and Philip Roth and an examination of films by Steven Spielberg and Claude Lanzmann, Rothberg demonstrates how the Holocaust as a traumatic event makes three fundamental demands on representation: a demand for documentation, a demand for reflection on the limits of representation, and a demand for engagement with the public sphere and commodity culture. As it establishes new grounding for Holocaust studies, his book provides a new understanding of realism, modernism, and postmodernism as responses to the demands of history.

"Extensive text, beautifully-written and well-researched, this book leads us through many historical and geographical adventures and towards a plethora of full-colour plates...These pages ground us by sharing a complex culture expressed through an object of practical simplicity." —Ptolemy Mann, SelvedgeThe Michael and Amy Rothberg Collection of knotted-pile tribal and nomadic bags and other rare small format pile weavings, among them many pieces made for women's dowries and other ceremonial functions, is recognised as the best of its kind anywhere in the world. The collection has been carefully and thoughtfully assembled over the past four decades. Michael Rothberg's collections are above all distinguished by the collector's acutely sensitive and perceptive eye for the best museum-quality material available on the international market. Specialists in the field and other collectors and tribal weaving enthusiasts have awaited the publication of this part of the Rothberg Collection for many years, ever since a selection of the material was shown at Sotheby's in Los Angeles in a feature exhibition during the American Conference on Oriental Rugs in January 1996. The scope of the collection includes antique pile bags, from the Transcaucasus region, as well as from the Shahsavan, Kurdish, Varamin region, Qashqa'i, Khamseh, Luri, Bakhtiari, Afshar and Baluch tribes of Iran.