Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive

Remnants of Auschwitz is one of Agamben's earlier works, but his cutting intelligence definitely still shows. The subject matter is the concentration camp, and more specifically, the language of the experience that follows the survivors back into the civilized world. Drawing extensively on the memoirs of Primo Levi, Agamben examines the Musselman (the Muslim), the most desperate of those interred at the concentration camps. He examines the shame of the survivors for having survived, and the powerful sympathy that they felt towards those who had to clean up the bodies in the gas chambers. Among all these threads of inquiry are the heart wrenching stories that will stay with you long after you put down this book. I will not lie to you - this book is difficult to read. It's subject matter is the most powerful experience of the 20th century. However, Agamben's demystification of the concentration camp serves its purpose; we, as humans, should learn from this tragedy, not bury it in the past.

I read this book after having read Agamben's big book "Homo Sacer." I found the analysis of bare life (homo sacer) in that book to be so fascinating that I picked up "Remnants," to see where else Agamben might go. This book is some of the most compelling theory I have read to date. The book has three major categories of analysis: the witness, the musselman (literally, the muslim), and shame. Each of these three categories have to do with the inhuman quality of being human and the speakability of that which is unspeakable. Indeed, Agamben deploys subtle thought in order to construct these internal contradictions that actually played on in the extreme case of Auschwitz. As one might expect from the title, this book is haunting. The testimonials given of the Musselman are particularly disturbing. Indeed, the experiences of Auschwitz is unspeakable. Perhaps, most startling is that Agamben argues our modern political paradigm is basically a sedated Auschwitz in which all of us can be turned into Musselmen, indeed, the musselman is that inhuman potential within our humanity. In short, this book is haunting, captivating, yet, unspeakable in the topics it tackles and the issues with which it wrestles. If you are not acquainted with Agamben, then, you might first be taken off guard by his verse and thesis style. But once you get in the flow, the form of his writing adds to its content.