>
>
> > CALL FOR PAPERS
>> State-constructed memory and meaning obstruct the confrontation of racism
>> as genocide. Calls to consciousness, relying on mystified and Eurocentric
>> constructions of humanity and suffering, are conditioned by the surrealism
>> and hypocrisy of regret. With the loss of European life as the only common
>> and binding referent for such atrocities, no conventional language can
>> denounce the genocide of Native and African Americans as meaningful or
>> morally and politically tragic. Problematizing resistance through this
>> language, Native, African, and European American writers use German Nazism
>> as the recognized referent for the terms holocaust and fascism to make U.S.
>> genocidal practices meaningful.
>> Joy James
>>
>> Today, the language of the holocaust cannot be understood apart from the
>> Jewish experience. Historically, this argument is suspect, if not
>> inadequate. The intent of this proposed anthology is to understand why
>> this national investment is made and to what extent these terms impact
>> debates concerning genocide beyond the Jewish community. In rallies,
>> demonstrations, museums, movies, and political debates across the United
>> States and, throughout the world, remembrance of the Jewish Holocaust is
>> mobilized in causes ranging from international genocide tribunals to the
>> defense of Israel. In newspapers, articles appear daily on the legacies of
>> the Holocaust, the continued struggle for reparations, and the eternal need
>> to "make sure it never happens again."
>>
>> Within this context of hyper-visibility, if not obsession within the United
>> States, even beyond the Jewish community's, a number of scholars have
>> recently challenged the usefulness of such a hyper-focus on the Jewish
>> Holocaust, which some have described as a "Holocaust Industry." This
>> project continues this critical interrogation by moving toward an
>> understanding of how the "Holocaust Industry" plays out in those
>> communities, discourses and debates within the United States that are not
>> exclusively the domain of Jewish or Holocaust Studies as they are
>> traditionally defined. In taking this step, this anthology attempts to
>> decenter the Jewish Holocaust from the ubiquitous discussions of genocide,
>> reparations and U.S.-Israel relations. Our exploration of the arbitrary
>> centering of the Shoah within a number of other discourses, in terms of
>> addressing its presence and affects on the reparations debates, history of
>> genocide, U.S. foreign policy and a number other sites represents a step
> > toward its rightful displacement from these spaces. The Jewish Holocaust,
> > citing its supposed uniqueness, cannot continuously be used as the
> > yardstick or point of reference for all incidents of genocide and
>> xenophobia. This project urges a critical interrogation by moving toward
>> an understanding of how a "Holocaust Industry" influences national and
>> international communities, discourses and debates. We therefore attempts
>> to displace the "Holocaust Industry" from these discourses while centering
>> the specifically national, and more generally genocidal histories which the
>> Jewish Holocaust's current hyper-visibility inherently stifles our
>> understanding of.
>>
>> In recent years, a number of scholars have challenged the hegemonic
>> position of the Shoah within American life. Peter Novick in The Holocaust
>> in American Life goes so far as to suggest the over-emphasis is largely
>> ahistorical: ". . . the available evidence doesn't suggest that overall,
>> American Jews (let alone American gentiles) were traumatized by the
>> Holocaust . . ." Although the Shoah is not specifically part of the United
>> States' historiography, the Jewish Holocaust is continuously reinscribed as
>> part of American history. The establishment of the United States Holocaust
>> Memorial Museum, on the National Mall no less, reflects this
>> obsession. There are additional examples revealing the cultural centrality
> > of the industry, ranging from shelves of books and movies, to
>> state-sponsored holidays. Every state in the United States sponsors annual
>> Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Days, many of which are held in the chambers
>> of state legislatures. Furthermore, the United States boasts over one
>> hundred Jewish Holocaust institutions, including seven museums. The US
>> thus enacts its obsession with the Shoah in a myriad of ways. The central
>> question of this anthology is: what is the impact of this fixation and the
>> accompanying "Holocaust Industry" on "minority" discourses as well as those
>> related social, political, economic and psychological spaces?
>>
>> ORGANIZATION
>> The bulk of the existing critical literature, most importantly the work of
>> Peter Novick, Christopher Browning, Yehuda Bauer and Norman Finkelstein to
>> name only a few, that examines the construction of the Jewish Holocaust
>> have either ignored the ways in which the "Holocaust Industry" impacts
>> discussions unrelated to the historical event of the Shoah, or reify the
>> centrality and exceptional nature of the Jewish historical
>> experience. Focusing on its affects within the Jewish community and
>> subsequent Jewish identity development, the literature has merely hinted
>> at, if not obfuscated, the significance of the Shoah in American
>> life. This project solicits papers that will further open this door to
>> fully explore the ways in which the Jewish Holocaust plays out in a number
>> of spaces. We request papers that address, but are not limited to, the
>> following topics:
>> * Reparations/restitution
>> * Genocide/Slavery in the Americas
>> * U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestinian Authority
>> * US foreign relations
>> * Minority/Jewish relations
>> * Genocide Studies
>> * Critical Holocaust/Jewish Studies and Anti-Semitism
>> * Whiteness and Jewish/Holocaust Studies
>> This project will bring together a number of scholars, both the established
>> and the aspiring, to study the meaning of genocidal violence in the
>> histories of the Americas when filtered through a European
>> event. Additionally, the work will comment on the need to study genocide
>> in a context that centers communities of color and the genocidal contours
>> specific to racial projects predating the Shoah by centuries. Such a
>> direction will not only permit a more detailed exploration of the cultural
>> power of the "Holocaust Industry," and its construction, manipulation,
>> dissemination and reception, but more importantly will explore the ways and
>> sites in which a Shoah discourse impacts and affects social policy,
>> community relations, historical understanding and identity formation in
>> areas of study generally seen as unrelated to Holocaust Studies. As an
>> anthology this project will provide a forum for experts in a variety of
>> fields to comment on the effects and articulations within these other
>> discussions/discourses.
>>
>> Your 500-word abstract/proposal and a brief CV must be received by January
>> 20th. Please send all correspondences to [log in to unmask] or David Leonard,
>> Washington State University, Wilson 111, PO Box 644010, Pullman, WA
>> 99164-4010 and/or [log in to unmask] or Robert Soza, UC Berkeley,
> > 506 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-2570.
>>
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