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WHEN THE TIGER LEAPS INTO THE PAST

WHEN THE TIGER LEAPS INTO THE PAST AbstractThis article examines Giorgio Agamben’s rejection of the religious term Holocaust as a name for the extermination of the Jewish people. Agamben rejects this term (and eventually prefers the term Shoah) in so far as it implies a sacrificial exchange with the divine. He argues that the Jews were not killed as sacrificial victims but as (biopolitical) homines sacri. Yet, in so doing, Agamben also denies the redemptive potential of the term Holocaust, preventing the victims finding a place in public memory. In fact, he overlooks the fact that the “Final Solution” also involved a plan to erase all traces of the extermination itself. This article seeks to challenge Agamben’s view with the help of László Nemes’ film Son of Saul. It argues that Nemes’ film is a unique example of a film about the Holocaust that avoids regression into positions that Agamben criticizes. As such, the film can be regarded as an example of Benjaminian messianic redemption. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities Taylor & Francis

WHEN THE TIGER LEAPS INTO THE PAST

Nedoh, Boštjan
Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities , Volume 24 (5): 17 – Sep 3, 2019
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WHEN THE TIGER LEAPS INTO THE PAST

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines Giorgio Agamben’s rejection of the religious term Holocaust as a name for the extermination of the Jewish people. Agamben rejects this term (and eventually prefers the term Shoah) in so far as it implies a sacrificial exchange with the divine. He argues that the Jews were not killed as sacrificial victims but as (biopolitical) homines sacri. Yet, in so doing, Agamben also denies the redemptive potential of the term Holocaust, preventing the victims finding...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
1469-2899
eISSN
0969-725X
DOI
10.1080/0969725X.2019.1655270
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines Giorgio Agamben’s rejection of the religious term Holocaust as a name for the extermination of the Jewish people. Agamben rejects this term (and eventually prefers the term Shoah) in so far as it implies a sacrificial exchange with the divine. He argues that the Jews were not killed as sacrificial victims but as (biopolitical) homines sacri. Yet, in so doing, Agamben also denies the redemptive potential of the term Holocaust, preventing the victims finding a place in public memory. In fact, he overlooks the fact that the “Final Solution” also involved a plan to erase all traces of the extermination itself. This article seeks to challenge Agamben’s view with the help of László Nemes’ film Son of Saul. It argues that Nemes’ film is a unique example of a film about the Holocaust that avoids regression into positions that Agamben criticizes. As such, the film can be regarded as an example of Benjaminian messianic redemption.

Journal

Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities – Taylor & Francis

Published: Sep 3, 2019

Keywords: Holocaust; history; messianism; sacrifice; biopolitics; fiction

References

  • Walter Benjamin and the Demonic: Happiness and Historical Redemption
  • Theologico-Political Fragment
  • Theses on the Philosophy of History
  • Holocaust Zombies: Mourning and Memory in Polish Contemporary Culture
  • “Odnarejeno: Benjamin in prihodnost preteklosti” [Undone: Benjamin and the Future of the Past]
  • Gesture in Shoah
  • Giorgio Agamben’s Franciscan Ontology
  • Sacrifice, Mimesis, and the Theorizing on Victimhood (A Speculative Essay)
  • From Psychoanalysis to Politics: Antigone as Revolutionary in Judith Butler and Žižek
  • Topographies/Topologies of Modernity: Auschwitz as a Spatial Threshold
  • The Messianic, Sovereignty and the Camps: Arendt and Agamben
  • The Messianic without Messianism: Walter Benjamin’s Materialist Theology
  • Making Monsters in László Nemes’ Son of Saul
  • Threat, Resistance, and Collective Action: The Cases of Sobibór, Treblinka, and Auschwitz
  • Geographies of the Camp
  • Mass Migrations as a Messianic Event? Rereading Agamben’s State of Exception in Light of the Refugee Crisis in Europe
  • Messianism between Religion and Post-Religion: On Giorgio Agamben’s ‘New Politics.’
  • Giorgio Agamben’s Godless Saints: Saving What Was Not
  • Still Breathing (An Interview with László Nemes)
  • Melancholy and the Act