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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Introduction
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Politics, Nationalism, and Collective Memory
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Front Matter
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Strategies of Communication and Representation
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Front Matter
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Authorship and Fashioning the Text
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
"Critical study of Levi has surged recently, and this is a fine addition to that literature. Sodi and Marcus (both, Italian,
Yale) have assembled an international group of prominent and emerging scholars of Italian, Holocaust, and Levi
literary studies. The primary obstacles to early dissemination of Levi's Survival in Auschwitz were the belief, on the
part of leading publishers, that the Holocaust could not be assimilated into conventional literary genre studies and the
early postwar repression of Italian Holocaust history to pursue the anti-Fascist narrative. Levi is credited with the
eventual Italian escalation of interest in Holocaust literary production and scholarship. Among the collection's best
essays are those that treat Levi's politics and involvement in anti-Fascist groups; his predeportation identity based on a
theory of "parallel nationalization," whereby Italianization was privileged over Jewish identity; and shifting Italian
Holocaust memory from 1958 (with the republication of Survival in Auschwitz) to 1963 (publication of The
Reawakening) and its subsequent decline. Other essays explore Freudian trauma theory in The Reawakening, Levi
and Italo Calvino, literariness of the Survival in Auschwitz canto section, and Levi's attitude toward Muselmänner.
One essay provides a questionable reading of If Not Now, When? through the lens of the American Westernfilm
genre." - Choice
"It is usually said that the life of a writer is a life of the mind. Primo Levi is an exception: he wrote his masterpieces because he was acquainted with grief. The essays in this volume grasp this essential trait of his writings and acknowledge that they cannot be simply classified as contributions to the intellectual history of recent times. With extraordinary precision, all of them, together, open the door to the moral center of the writer's lived experience, to his unique art, and to the most profound oftragedies of the twentieth century." - Giuseppe Mazzotta, Sterling Professor in the Humanities for Italian, Yale University, and author of Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge
"In their diverse ways, these essays testify to what by now should be irrefutably clear: Primo Levi was one of the most important writers of the past half-century. The brilliance of his achievement is clarified in the critical studies of this learned and engaging book." - Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Indiana University and author of A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature and The End of the Holocaust
"An indispensable, wide-ranging collection of essays on a great writer and memorialist. Contributors analyze in depth not only his literary legacy but also his belated recognition as a world-class author, his relation to the Italian Jewish community, and Italy's 'cultural reticence' in dealingwith the Holocaust." - Geoffrey Hartman, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, Yale University, author of The Longest Shadow: In the Aftermath of the Holocaust
About the authors
MILLICENT MARCUS is Professor of Italian at Yale University, USA.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: New Reflections on Primo Levi
Book Subtitle: Before and after Auschwitz
Editors: Risa Sodi, Millicent Marcus
Series Title: Italian and Italian American Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119673
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Risa Sodi and Millicent Marcus 2011
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-230-10385-6Published: 13 June 2011
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-28825-0Published: 13 June 2011
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-11967-3Published: 04 July 2011
Series ISSN: 2635-2931
Series E-ISSN: 2635-294X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 214
Topics: European Literature, Fiction, Literary Theory, Cultural Anthropology