@inbook{72e950d0575241fa830f1c42147551f0,
title = "The Ethics of Discomfort: Critical Perpetrator Studies and/as Education after Auschwitz",
abstract = "This chapter begins with Adorno{\textquoteright}s call for a critical engagement with perpetrators in his essay “Education after Auschwitz.” Adorno conceives of education as promoting autonomy and critical self-reflection. I relate this to Foucault{\textquoteright}s conception of “desubjectivation” and an ethics of discomfort, which I develop as a core principle of teaching about perpetrators and a critical Perpetrator Studies more generally. I argue that literature and art have a crucial role to play as they can both model and elicit a productive sense of discomfort. I draw on two examples to illustrate this claim: a work of literary non-fiction, Helga Schubert{\textquoteright}s Die Welt da drinnen (2003); and Milo Rau{\textquoteright}s Breivik{\textquoteright}s Statement (2012), a performance piece. I discuss these works in terms of the concepts of empathic unsettlement and affirmative critique, respectively, and show how they are each committed to a critical perpetrator pedagogy that is informed by an ethics of discomfort.",
keywords = "perpetrators, education, Auschwitz, ethics, discomfort, Adorno, Foucault, pedagogy, Holocaust, enlightenment",
author = "S.C. Knittel",
year = "2019",
doi = "10.4324/9781315102887-35",
language = "English",
isbn = "9781138103245",
series = "Routledge International Handbooks",
publisher = "Routledge",
pages = "379--384",
editor = "Knittel, {Susanne C.} and Goldberg, {Zachary J. }",
booktitle = "The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies",
edition = "1",
}