After the Holocaust
The Book of Job, Primo Levi, and the Path to Affliction

This book is a new and thoughtful examination of the experience of suffering.

C. Fred Alford (Author)

9780521747066, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 April 2009

184 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.1 cm, 0.26 kg

'A work of literary sensitivity and erudition, After the Holocaust deepens our understanding not only of Holocaust survivors but of all who have been confronted by the unthinkable.' Raymond Scheindlin, Jewish Theological Seminary and translator of a new edition of the Book of Job

The Holocaust marks a decisive moment in modern suffering in which it becomes almost impossible to find meaning or redemption in the experience. In this study, C. Fred Alford offers a new and thoughtful examination of the experience of suffering. Moving from the Book of Job, an account of meaningful suffering in a God-drenched world, to the work of Primo Levi, who attempted to find meaning in the Holocaust through absolute clarity of insight, he concludes that neither strategy works well in today's world. More effective are the day-to-day coping practices of some survivors. Drawing on testimonies of survivors from the Fortunoff Video Archives, Alford also applies the work of Julia Kristeva and the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicot to his examination of a topic that has been and continues to be central to human experience.

1. Introduction
2. Job, transitional space, and ruthlessness
3. Holocaust testimonies: after the silence of Job
4. Sisyphus, Levi, and Job at Auschwitz
5. Conclusion: beyond the silence of Job.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], The Holocaust [HBTZ1]