Satirical Approach to Shoah Business and the Cult of Victimhood

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61988987%3A17250%2F19%3AA20021ER" target="_blank" >RIV/61988987:17250/19:A20021ER - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/3/4/51" target="_blank" >https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/3/4/51</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genealogy3040051" target="_blank" >10.3390/genealogy3040051</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Satirical Approach to Shoah Business and the Cult of Victimhood

Original language description

This paper sets out to demonstrate the changes that post-Holocaust fiction has been undergoing since around the turn of the new millennium. It analyzes the highly innovative and often provocative approaches to the Holocaust and its memory found in Tova Reich’s novel My Holocaust—a scathing satire on the personal and institutional exploitation of Holocaust commemoration, manifested in the commodification of the historical trauma in what has been termed “Shoah business”. The novel can be seen as a reaction to the increasing appropriation of the Holocaust by popular culture. This paper focuses on Reich’s critical response to the cult of victimhood and the unhealthy competition for Holocaust primacy, corresponding with the growth of a “victim culture”. It also explores other thematic aspects of the author’s satire—the abuse of the term “Holocaust” for personal, political and ideological purposes; attempts to capitalize on the suffering of millions of victims; the trivialization of this tragedy; conflicts between particularists and universalists in their attitude to the Shoah; and criticism of Holocaust-centered Judaism. The purpose of this paper is to show how Tova Reich has enriched post-Holocaust fiction by presenting a comic treatment of false victimary discourse, embodied by a fraudulent survivor and a whole gallery of inauthentic characters. This paper highlights the novel’s originality, which enables it to step outside the frame of traditional Holocaust fiction.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60206 - Specific literatures

Project

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Continuities

V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Genealogy

ISSN

2313-5778

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

3

Issue of the periodical within the volume

4

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

51

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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