Obliged by Memory: Literature, Religion, Ethics

Front Cover
Steven T. Katz, Alan Rosen
Syracuse University Press, 2006 M01 19 - 208 pages
Based on a three-day symposium, "The Claims of Memory," this volume conveys the omnipresence of memory in Elie Wiesel's writing and attempts to preserve the flavor of the exchange that took place. It represents several intersecting approaches to memory: the nature of memoir writing; an analysis of contrasting dimensions of memory in victims and persecutors; the ethics of memory; and chronicling of the "memory" of God through key texts in Christian and Jewish traditions. Contents include: Cynthia Ozick, "The Rights of History and the Rights of Imagination" Susan Suleiman, "Do Facts Matter in Holocaust Memoirs? Wilkomirski/Wiesel" Shlomo Breznitz, "The Advantages of Delay: A Psychological Perspective on Memoirs of Trauma" John Silber, "Memory, History, and Ethics" Geoffrey Hartman, "The Morality of Fiction and Elie Wiesel" Jeffrey Mehlman, "Reflections on the Papon Trial" Paula Fredriksen, "Augustine on God and Memory"

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Contents

The Rights of History and the Rights of Imagination
3
Do Facts Matter in Holocaust Memoirs?
21
The Advantages of Delay A Psychological Perspective on Memoirs of Trauma
43
Memory History and Ethics
55
Reflections on the Papon Trial
69
The Gray Zone of Scientific Invention Primo Levi and the Omissions of Memory
83
Elie Wiesel and the Morality of Fiction
107
Transfusing Memory SecondGeneration Postmemory in Elie Wiesels The Forgotten
117
Augustine on God and Memory
131
Gods Memory
139
Afterword
157
Works Cited
165
Index
175
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