Primo Levi responded to Adorno’s startling statement that “after Auschwitz poetry is an act of barbarity” with a slight shift into possibility: “after Auschwitz there can only be poetry about Auschwitz”. In the past twenty years or so, Holocaust Studies has emerged as its own formidable discipline. Despite unique pressure, and possibly because of it, Holocaust Studies has made increasingly relevant advances in most fields of theoretical practice. This lecture attempts a preliminary examination of how these practises and strategies might hyphenate into other areas of study. Themes include the problem of emplotment, modelling exceptional history within history, the productive effect of silence and repression, hybridization, the false opposition of mystification and demystification, fiction and non-fiction, intentionalism and structuralism. This lecture is part confessional, part academic slurry with a literary horror fiction and film focus.

Mr. Burgess is donating his fee for the lecture to The Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre. For more information on their work, you can visit their website, www.holocaustcentre.com.

Please note this is a live broadcast event – the class cannot be watched later, so please be sure you are available at the date and time the class is being offered in before registering. All sales are final, and we will not give refunds for any reason other than class cancellation. Classes curated by Miskatonic New York are in Eastern Time.