Representing Genocide: The Holocaust As Paradigm? (comparative Genocide)
by Rebecca Jinks /
2016 / English / PDF
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This book explores the diverse ways in which Holocaust
representations have influenced and structured how other
genocides are understood and represented in the West. Rebecca
Jinks focuses in particular on the canonical 20th century cases
of genocide: Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Using
literature, film, photography, and memorialisation, she
demonstrates that we can only understand the Holocaust's status
as a 'benchmark' for other genocides if we look at the deeper,
structural resonances which subtly shape many representations of
genocide.
This book explores the diverse ways in which Holocaust
representations have influenced and structured how other
genocides are understood and represented in the West. Rebecca
Jinks focuses in particular on the canonical 20th century cases
of genocide: Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Using
literature, film, photography, and memorialisation, she
demonstrates that we can only understand the Holocaust's status
as a 'benchmark' for other genocides if we look at the deeper,
structural resonances which subtly shape many representations of
genocide.Representing Genocide
Representing Genocide pursues five thematic areas in turn:
how genocides are recognised as such by western publics; the
representation of the origins and perpetrators of genocide; how
western witnesses represent genocide; representations of the
aftermath of genocide; and western responses to genocide.
Throughout, the book distinguishes between 'mainstream' and
other, more nuanced and engaged, representations of genocide. It
shows how these mainstream representations – the majority –
largely replicate the representational framework of the
Holocaust, including the way in which mainstream Holocaust
representations resist recognising the rationality,
instrumentality and normality of genocide, preferring instead to
present it as an aberrant, exceptional event in human society. By
contrast, the more engaged representations – often, but not
always, originating from those who experienced genocide – tend to
revolve around precisely genocide's ordinariness, and the
structures and situations common to human society which
contribute to and become involved in the violence.
pursues five thematic areas in turn:
how genocides are recognised as such by western publics; the
representation of the origins and perpetrators of genocide; how
western witnesses represent genocide; representations of the
aftermath of genocide; and western responses to genocide.
Throughout, the book distinguishes between 'mainstream' and
other, more nuanced and engaged, representations of genocide. It
shows how these mainstream representations – the majority –
largely replicate the representational framework of the
Holocaust, including the way in which mainstream Holocaust
representations resist recognising the rationality,
instrumentality and normality of genocide, preferring instead to
present it as an aberrant, exceptional event in human society. By
contrast, the more engaged representations – often, but not
always, originating from those who experienced genocide – tend to
revolve around precisely genocide's ordinariness, and the
structures and situations common to human society which
contribute to and become involved in the violence.