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December 2007

Giorgio Agamben, What Is Left of Auschwitz. The Witness and the Archive , translated by Alex. Cistelecan


Cluj-Napoca, Idea Design & Print Publishing House, 2006

Giorgio Agamben is a well-known Italian philosopher of the Western academic society. What is left of Auschwitz. The Witness and the Archive is the third book of the Homo sacer trilogy. The other two volumes of the trilogy are Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Naked Life and State of Exception . All three volumes address troublesome questions related to the manner in which the human subject has been developing during the postwar Western period, insisting on the relevance of biopolitics in creating the state of exception as well as in delimitating the sphere of sovereignty ( Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Naked Life ) , the limits of constitutionality and the terms of its transgression towards the state of exception ( State of Exception ), and the way in which one may cope with the traumas of Auschwitz.

In the third book of the trilogy, Agamben considers “the ethical and political significance of the extermination of the Jews” as well as “the topicality of the Holocaust”. More precisely, he discusses the manner in which testimonies concerning extermination camps experiences can be provided and registered, as well as their ethical results. The Italian philosopher draws the conclusion that, although the “the facts and the details” of the Holocaust have long been established and thoroughly researched, the understanding of the Auschwitz phenomenon is merely at the beginning. Agamben deems that the difficulty in having a good knowledge of Auschwitz, as well as the difficulty in having a good knowledge of history, stems from the fact that evidence and truth, seeing and understanding do not overlap. [fragment]

Corina Maria Pălăşan
Expert
Documentation and Research Office