Concentrationary Memories is based in the idea that the concentrationary plague unleashed on the world by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s has remained and is now a permanent presence shadowing modern life. It also argues that memory - and, indeed, art in general - must be invoked to show this haunting of the present by this menacing past.
Concentrationary Memories rests on a provocative, carefully theorized consideration of the nature of the 'concentrationary' universe, extending and reframing terms and ideas introduced by Hannah Arendt, on the one hand, and lesser known but significant figures in the French context such as David Rousset, Robert Antelme and Jean Cayrol. As its editors note, the first word of their title is unfamiliar in English, and this is perhaps a sign of the need for renewed and close attention to the phenomenon named by the French writer Rousset in 1946. The volume answers this need with care and a justly high level of critical vigilance. Without deflecting the importance attached to the term holocaust and to the issues and concerns of the racial genocides of the twentieth-century, the volume shifts attention towards the politics of deportation and internment, and pursues vital questions about the adequacy and nature of aesthetic responses, questions which bear upon the nature and concept of representation. A crucial emphasis of the volume is on the 'permanent presence' of the concentrationary, since its inception; the volume thus includes powerful and essential analyses of the phenomenon across examples in literature, film and photography since the liberation of the camps, and in varying global contexts. The 11 essays in the volume are supported by an extensive introduction by the editors, a contribution in its own right to ongoing debates about politics and representation, and the politics of representation. Given this focus, the meticulous attention to the presentation of the substantial number of images which feature in the volume is unsurprising, and deserves special recognition. This is a unique project, insofar as it breaks new ground in the establishment of a new object of enquiry and research, and goes some way into the exploration of this territory. The volume makes a substantial contribution to research on the legacies of the political evils of the last century and will be essential reading for anyone concerned with it and by it. The book makes a clear case that this includes all of us.
