Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide

History

Lang, Berel

World

University of Chicago Press

The Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews unmistakably defined both the act and the idea of genocide. In this book, Berel Lang argues that the events of the Nazi genocide compel reconsideration of such fundamental moral concepts as individual and group responsibility, the role of knowledge in ethical decisions and the conditions governing the relation between guilt and forgiveness.

Military

Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History (Jewish Literature and Culture)

These essays are extremely well written, with the clarity and accessibility that one has come to expect from Berel Lang, one of the most respected and significant philosophers writing about the Holocaust and its impact." ―Michael L. MorganIn these trenchant essays, philosopher Berel Lang examines post-Holocaust intepretations―and misinterpretations―showing the ways in which rhetoric and ideology have affected historical discourse about the Holocaust and how these accounts can be deconstructed. Why didn’t the Jews resist? How could the Germans have done what they did? Why didn’t more bystanders join in the rescue? In Lang’s view, these questions become mischievous when the circumstances in which victims, perpetrators, and bystanders played their roles are omitted or obscured. To confront such issues adequately requires comparative and contextual evidence. Post-Holocaust addresses such questions as the place of the Holocaust in the Nazi project as a whole, the roles of revenge and forgiveness in post-Holocaust Jewish thinking, Holocaust commemoration as artifice or "business," and the relationship of the Holocaust to traditional antisemitism. Lang’s analysis provides an incisive and fruitful basis for confronting these critical subjects.Jewish Literature and Culture―Alvin H. Rosenfeld, editor

Indiana University Press

"These essays are extremely well written, with the clarity and accessibility that one has come to expect from Berel Lang, one of the most respected and significant philosophers writing about the Holocaust and its impact." —Michael L. MorganIn these trenchant essays, philosopher Berel Lang examines post-Holocaust intepretations—and misinterpretations—showing the ways in which rhetoric and ideology have affected historical discourse about the Holocaust and how these accounts can be deconstructed. Why didn’t the Jews resist? How could the Germans have done what they did? Why didn’t more bystanders join in the rescue? In Lang’s view, these questions become mischievous when the circumstances in which victims, perpetrators, and bystanders played their roles are omitted or obscured. To confront such issues adequately requires comparative and contextual evidence. Post-Holocaust addresses such questions as the place of the Holocaust in the Nazi project as a whole, the roles of revenge and forgiveness in post-Holocaust Jewish thinking, Holocaust commemoration as artifice or "business," and the relationship of the Holocaust to traditional antisemitism. Lang’s analysis provides an incisive and fruitful basis for confronting these critical subjects.Jewish Literature and Culture—Alvin H. Rosenfeld, editor

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, the first intellectual biography of Primo Levi to describe the intersection of his roles as both chemist and writer In 1943, twenty-four-year-old Primo Levi had just begun a career in chemistry when, after joining a partisan group, he was captured by the Italian Fascist Militia and deported to Auschwitz. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his transport, he was one of fewer than 25 who survived the eleven months before the camp’s liberation. Upon returning to his native Turin, Levi resumed work as a chemist and was employed for thirty years by a company specializing in paints and other chemical coatings. Yet soon after his return to Turin, he also began writing—memoirs, essays, novels, short stories, poetry—and it is for this work that he has won international recognition. His first book, If This Is a Man, issued in 1947 after great difficulty in finding a publisher, remains a landmark document of the twentieth century. Berel Lang's groundbreaking biography shines new light on Levi’s role as a major intellectual and literary figure—an important Holocaust writer and witness but also an innovative moral thinker in whom his two roles as chemist and writer converged, providing the “matter” of his life. Levi’s writing combined a scientist’s attentiveness to structure and detail, an ironic imagination that found in all nature an ingenuity at once inviting and evasive, and a powerful and passionate moral imagination. Lang’s approach provides a philosophically acute and nuanced analysis of Levi as thinker, witness, writer, and scientific detective. About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." –New York Times "Exemplary." –Wall Street Journal "Distinguished." –New Yorker "Superb." –The Guardian

Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life (Jewish Lives)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Yale University Press

Originally published in 1991, this book analyses the relation between writing and ethics in a number of social contexts - in politics, as language discloses its connections to the institutions of totalitarianism and democracy; in the university, as contemporary scholarly ideals find an uncomfortably accurate representation in the stylistic forms of academic writing; in daily social practice, ranging from the status of truth in journalistic writing to the connection between pronouns and affirmative action; and finally in the ethical structure of language itself.

Writing and the Moral Self (Routledge Library Editions: Ethics)

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Routledge

Writing and the Moral Self

The contemporary view of writing as morally neutral assumes the modern conception of scientific truth versus art. Non fiction is judged on the basis of truth or falsity; fiction for its beauty or emotive qualities, and no place is left for writing as an embodiment of values, whereas writing is an instrument serving ends distinct from itself. In "Writing and the Moral Self", Berel Lang analyzes the relation between writing and ethics in a number of important social contexts - in politics, as language discloses its connections to the institutions of totalitarianism and democracy; in the university, as contemporary scholarly ideals find an uncomfortably accurate representation in the stylistic forms of academic writing; in daily social practice, ranging from the status of truth in journalistic writing to the connection between pronouns and affirmative action; and finally, in the ethical structure of language itself, even in its grammar. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of philosophy, linguistics and literature.

Literature & Fiction

The contemporary view of writing as morally neutral assumes the modern conception of scientific truth versus art. Non-fiction is judged on the basis of truth or falsity, fiction for its beauty or emotive qualities, and no place is left for writing as an embodiment of values. Writing is an instrument serving ends distinct from itself. In "Writing and the Moral Self", Berel Lang analyzes the relation between writing and ethics in a number of social contexts - in politics, as language discloses its connections to the institutions of totalitarianism and democracy; in the university, as contemporary scholarly ideals find an uncomfortably accurate representation in the stylistic forms of academic writing; in daily social practice, ranging from the status of truth in journalistic writing to the connection between pronouns and affirmative action; and finally, in the ethical structure of language itself, even in its grammar. The book provides an explanation of why the current state of writing should be a matter of general concern in the schools and universities, in business and the professions, and in government. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of philosophy, linguistics, and literature.

The Anatomy of Philosophical Style: Literary Philosophy and the Philosophy of Literature

"Literary Philosophy and the Philosophy of Literature" considers the relation between literature and philosophy elucidating the way literary theory and criticism can be applied to the texts of philosophy, and the way philosophical analysis can elucidate many of the central features of "literariness". In the literary study of philosophical writing, such issues are addressed as the identity and function of philosophical genres, the roles of implied author and reader in philosophical texts and the use of figuration and tropes in philosophical discourse. The claim of the importance of the literary analysis of philosophical writing for the reading of philosophy is argued for on the basis of examples from philosophers as diverse as Plato, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, G.E. Moore and in sustained discussion of the work of Descartes.

Blackwell Pub.

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Books by Lang, Berel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lang, Berel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide

Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide

Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History (Jewish Literature and Culture)

Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History (Jewish Literature and Culture)

Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life (Jewish Lives)

Writing and the Moral Self (Routledge Library Editions: Ethics)

Writing and the Moral Self (Routledge Library Editions: Ethics)

Writing and the Moral Self

Writing and the Moral Self

The Anatomy of Philosophical Style: Literary Philosophy and the Philosophy of Literature