Kearns, Gerard (2014) If wood were an element: Primo Levi and the material world. Versus: Quaderni di Studi Semiotici, 119. pp. 21-49.

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Abstract

Labour quarters of the industrial complex that was Auschwitz- Monowitz offers an opportunity to reflect upon aspects of the materiality of the signs of the Holocaust. This shed is very likely one that Primo Levi knew and its survival incites us to interrogate its materiality and significance by engaging with Levi’s own writings on these matters. I begin by explicating the ways the shed might function as an ‘encountered sign,’ before moving to consider its materiality both as a product of modernist genocide and as witness to the relations between precarity and vitality. Finally, I turn to the texts written upon the shed itself and consider the performative function of Nazi language.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Primo Levi; material world;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
Item ID:	7635
Depositing User:	Gerry Kearns
Date Deposited:	21 Nov 2016 14:35
Journal or Publication Title:	Versus: Quaderni di Studi Semiotici
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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