The "Differend" of Shoes: Van Gogh, Beckett, Wiesel, Levi, and Holocaust Museums
Abstract:Focusing on the representation or presence of shoes in several literary texts and war memorials as metonymies of the Holocaust, this article will rely on Jean Francois Lyotard's call for (impossible yet necessary) linkages "after Auschwitz" to make connections between these various textual and museological scenes. As a point of departure, I revisit Jacques Derrida's notion of "restitution" in his critique of the debate between Martin Heidegger and art critic Meyer Schapiro on the origin of a pair of shoes in van Gogh's eponymous painting. While being sensitive to Derrida's economic argument in The Truth in Painting, I attempt to make a case for the necessity of rehabilitating "restitution" in works of representation and commemoration, across literature, visual arts, memorials and museums.