Dangerous Intersections: Complicity, Trauma, and Holocaust Memory
Professor of French Debarati Sanyal‘s research interests include nineteenth and twentieth century French literature; theories of modernism and modernity; questions of trauma, testimony, literary form and commitment; Holocaust studies; and Baudelaire studies. Her latest book, Dangerous Intersections: Complicity, Trauma and Holocaust Memory (Fordham University Press, 2015), investigates cultural politics and memories of atrocity.
Dangerous Intersections examines the ways in which literature and film from the French-speaking world have repeatedly sought not to singularize the Holocaust as the paradigm of historical trauma, but rather to connect its memory with other memories of atrocity. The book’s corpus includes fiction, theater, film, and contemporary theory by Alain Resnais, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, Jonathan Littell, Assia Djebar and Boualem Sansal. These works forge a dialogue between different legacies of historical violence, particularly the Holocaust and colonialism.
After an introducation by Miryam Sas (Comparative Literature and Film Studies), Professor Sanyal will speak briefly about her work, read a short excerpt, and then open the floor for discussion.