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Troubling catergoriesi can’t think without: reflections on women in the holocaust

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Abstract

The discussion of women and the Holocaust is situated in the context of two early projects: an experimental course sponsored by San Francisco Hiliel and Lehrhaus Judaica in 1984 and a dialogue on the topic initiated by feminist artist Judy Chicago in 1988. Two questions are examined: Who are the women in the Holocaust? and who are the researchers/ scholars framing inquiry into the topic? My reading of these projects suggests that Holocaust scholars should pay careful attention to how we set the boundaries of inquiry by defining certain historical and cutural subjects as epicentral while regarding others as peripheral, and cautions against construing gender in universalizing and “natural” terms. My title is borrowed from Lather (1995). The fall sentence from which I have quoted reads, “I trouble the very categories I can’t think without” (1995: 13)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, Stanford

    R. Ruth Linden

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  1. R. Ruth Linden
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My title is borrowed from Lather (1995). The fall sentence from which I have quoted reads, “I trouble the very categories I can’t think without” (1995: 13)

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Linden, R.R. Troubling catergoriesi can’t think without: reflections on women in the holocaust. Cont Jewry 17, 18–33 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965403

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