E-book
Digital Version
Download | Copy/paste | Printing

The guardians of memory and the return of the xenophobic right

2020 - CPL - Centro Primo Levi

343 p. : ill.

  • Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-322) and index.
  • Valentina Pisanty's The Guardians of Memory opens with a paradox and a question. The paradox derives from an empirical observation: that the very post-Cold War era that has constructed a widespread commemorative culture dedicated to the Holocaust has also been a period in which politics has experienced a rightward turn characterized by ever more virulent racism and racist violence. The question Pisanty poses involves interpreting this paradox: is this conjunction of a memory culture that understands itself as dedicated to tolerance and antiracism and a political culture that is trending racist merely a coincidence or is there a deeper causal connection to be found? Has a much-vaunted cosmopolitan Holocaust memory - with its linked slogans of "Never forget!" and "Never again!" - simply failed to prevent the rise of the right or, more darkly, might it even be implicated in that political turn? From the preface by Michael Rothberg. [Publisher's text]
  • Original title: I guardiani della memoria e il ritorno delle destre xenofobe.