Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse

The present paper attempts to cast light on an important aspect of Holocaust literature. Basically, it is an investigation into two ideological responses to the Shoah that, though characterised by the dominant element of silence, both are marked by essential discrepancies. One sort of responses fi...

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Main Author:	Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2015
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/1/7585-22958-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-8497
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-84972016-12-14T06:47:21Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/ Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed The present paper attempts to cast light on an important aspect of Holocaust literature. Basically, it is an investigation into two ideological responses to the Shoah that, though characterised by the dominant element of silence, both are marked by essential discrepancies. One sort of responses finds in silence a trope for the incommunicability of the trauma; the counter response professes silence as a fragile way of protest and resistance. This paradoxical dialectic of silence is traced in both Jewish-American and Arab-American literary discourses as emblematic contexts of the discrepancy in the Holocaust representation. Silence, as examined herein, is found to typify a meta-narrative arising from the tension between sacred memory and subversive amnesia. It effectively re-enacts the conflicting histories of loss and trauma where the deliberate absence of voice is believed to convey what words mostly fall short of and thus it could enhance one’s status of victimhood. Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2015 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/1/7585-22958-1-PB.pdf Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed (2015) Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 21 (1). pp. 61-69. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/index
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	The present paper attempts to cast light on an important aspect of Holocaust literature. Basically, it is an investigation into two ideological responses to the Shoah that, though characterised by the dominant element of silence, both are marked by essential discrepancies. One sort of responses finds in silence a trope for the incommunicability of the trauma; the counter response professes silence as a fragile way of protest and resistance. This paradoxical dialectic of silence is traced in both Jewish-American and Arab-American literary discourses as emblematic contexts of the discrepancy in the Holocaust representation. Silence, as examined herein, is found to typify a meta-narrative arising from the tension between sacred memory and subversive amnesia. It effectively re-enacts the conflicting histories of loss and trauma where the deliberate absence of voice is believed to convey what words mostly fall short of and thus it could enhance one’s status of victimhood.
format	Article
author	Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed
spellingShingle	Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse
author_facet	Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed
author_sort	Al-Aghberi, Munir Ahmed
title	Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse
title_short	Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse
title_full	Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse
title_fullStr	Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse
title_full_unstemmed	Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse
title_sort	telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in jewish-american and arab- american holocaust discourse
publisher	Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM
publishDate	2015
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8497/1/7585-22958-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:52:27Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:52:27Z
_version_	1777406309543444480

Telling the untellable: dialectic of silence in Jewish-American and Arab- American Holocaust discourse

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