The Complete Lives of Camp People: Colonialism, Fascism, Concentrated Modernity (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781478006671)

In The Complete Lives of Camp People Rudolf Mr痙ek presents a sweeping study of the material and cultural lives of twentieth-century concentration camp internees and the multiple ways in which their experiences speak to the fundamental logics of modernity. Mr痙ek focuses on the minutiae of daily life in two camps: Theresienstadt, a Nazi "ghetto" for Jews near Prague, and the Dutch "isolation camp" Boven Digoel-which was located in a remote part of New Guinea between 1927 and 1943 and held Indonesian rebels who attempted to overthrow the colonial government. Drawing on a mix of interviews with survivors and their descendants, archival accounts, ephemera, and media representations, Mr痙ek shows how modern life's most mundane tasks-buying clothes, getting haircuts, playing sports-continued on in the camps, which were themselves designed, built, and managed in accordance with modernity's tenets. In this way, Mr痙ek demonstrates that concentration camps are not exceptional spaces; they are the locus of modernity in its most distilled form.

Author: Rudolf Mr痙ek
ISBN-10: 1478006676
ISBN-13: 9781478006671
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/17/2020
Pages: 496
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.50lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 1.30d