Shoah Smut

How have misrepresentative myths about the Holocaust become integrated into Jewish narratives of collective identity? How do exploitative tropes traverse the boundary from fictionalized dramatizations to consecrated national mythology? How does censorship of certain literary works inform norms of taboo and acceptability in Holocaust representation?

Shoah Smut is a comparative translation project centered around the cultural reception, publication history, censorship, and pedagogical uses of erotic Holocaust literature. My research seeks to trace the myths around which sensationalized Holocaust narratives cohere in order to better understand the role of popular literature in introducing historical distortions into post-Shoah discourse. I am particularly interested in the notion of the Holocaust as an ‘unspeakable’ event, and the murky boundary between what cannot be expressed and what may not be expressed in literature.

This site will feature recent publications, upcoming speaking engagements, and overviews of research developments.