The Holocaust: Questions for the Humanities

This paper discusses the challenges posed by the Holocaust and its representations to the practices of the Humanities. The nature of these challenges is brought through an examination of the German Historikerstreit and the French controversies surrounding Heidegger’s relation to the Nazis. The nature of historical representation and its relation to affect are examined in works by Jacques Derrida, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. The Humanities cannot appropriate the Holocaust but they cannot ignore it either. They face the daunting task of learning how to remember it.