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IRAN’S HOLOCAUST CONTEST:
Terror, Humor and The Holocaust...
Reality is indeed more bizarre than fiction.
A Holocaust Contest? A prize for the best entry that “proves” the Holocaust never occurred?
English Professor and cultural critic, Professor Kay Picart (full bio below) is currently conducting Talk Show interviews on this topic. Kay’s research and published writings cover intersections binding representations of the Holocaust, horror, and terror; her work also grapples with the issue of how humor can be used as a political tool (as a “civilized snarl”), or as a way of coming to terms with trauma. Her books and articles in this area explore representations of violence and the Gothic in film—inclusive of those contemporary “monsters” we call “terrorists” or “serial killers,” for example, while noting that there are different types of “monster talk,” which serve different rhetorical purposes.
Kay is the author of eight published books, among which are: The Holocaust Film Sourcebook (Fiction, Documentary, Propaganda) 2 volumes (Praeger, 2004); a coauthored book with David Frank, Frames of Evil: Holocaust as Horror in American Film, and, with Cecil Greek, a co-edited anthology on images of the Gothic in relation to representations of crime and violence in film and media (under review with Illinois University Press). She has published articles in film criticism, criminology, autoethnography, law, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, feminism and philosophy, philosophy/sociology of science, and phenomenology, as well as more than eighty popular pieces on Philippine art and culture as a columnist in various Korean and U.S. newspapers and magazines.
One of her books, Remaking the Frankenstein Myth on Film: Between Horror and Laughter (State University of New York Press, 2003), explores the complex conjunction between laughter and horror in cinematic representations of “monsters;” her work on a “Gothic criminology” examines the movements across fact and fiction in representations of evil and violence.
Kay’s ninth and forthcoming book, Frames of Evil: Holocaust as Horror in American Film (Southern Illinois University Press, forthcoming 2006) has been given the following advanced praise:
Dominick LaCapra (Cornell University) praises Frames of Evil as "theoretically informed and insightful."
Steven Alan Carr (Indiana University) finds the book’s “premise – reading the Holocaust as a generic offshoot of the horror film – is brilliant and promises to invigorate both Holocaust studies as well as film studies.”
Edward J. Ingebretsen (Georgetown University) finds the book’s analysis "of Gothic cinematic discourse is quite useful to thinking about the Holocaust, because similar pressures are at work in both . . . [Picart and Frank’s] scholarship explicitly addresses Adorno’s somber conclusion that “after Auschwitz to write a poem is barbaric. Gothic representation, they argue, influences aesthetics, the study of film, issues of historical representation, ethics."
Robert Burgoyne (Wayne State University) wrote that Picart and Frank’s “well conceived argument concerning the reciprocal relationships among Holocaust and horror representation in film is applied in a nuanced an flexible way to a variety of texts, and the implications are given a full and expansive airing. The [book] provides a definitive treatment of a subject that has been noticed by several writers, but until now has never been fully explored.”
For reviews and a description of The Holocaust Film Sourcebook:
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C7850.aspx
For commentary on Kay’s work on the Holocaust and Gothic Criminology, go to:
http://www.research.fsu.edu/researchr/summer2003/monsterproblem.html
The following NY Times article may be helpful for show prep:
Iran's Caricature Retaliation Attracts Reaction
By Foreign News Desk, Istanbul
Published: Wednesday, February 08, 2006
zaman.com
The Iranian newspaper Hamshahri's launching of an international caricature contest on the holocaust as "retaliation" against insulting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed caused a big reaction.
The newspaper's act has been perceived as provocation and Jewish establishments interpreted the contest as "evidence that the spirit of Hitler is still alive in the Muslim world." The newspaper published by the Tehran Municipality announced it will award prizes to "12 people" at the end of the contest. The responsible for the crisis Denmark-based Jyllands-Posten newspaper had published 12 caricatures. Meanwhile, both the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Tehran were attacked by demonstrators yesterday.
Hamshahri newspaper’s art director Farid Murtazawi said the contest is a kind of response to the newspapers that published the caricatures. "They published caricatures insulting the Prophet Mohammed with the excuse of freedom of expression. “We will see whether they do what they say; whether they will reprint these pictures of the holocaust," Murtazawi said.
Hamshahri defending its campaign said: "This is a serious question for the Muslims: Does the West's ‘freedom of expression’ comprise issues such as the Jewish genocide and the crimes of the US and Israel, or is it valid only for the humiliation of the divine religions' sacred values? We want the world artists to use their freedom expression, draw relevant caricatures by keeping away from any conflicting attitude and take part in the contest."
Marvin Hier, chairman of the Jewish association Simon Wiesenthal Center that angrily responded to the incident, said Hitler's view "If there is something wrong, the Jews are responsible for this," is still prevalent in Muslim countries. Iranian religious leader Ali Khamanei claims the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad are part of a plot by Israel to spite the Muslim world for HAMAS's victory in Palestinian elections.
BIOGRAPHY OF KAY PICART:
Dr. Caroline Joan (Kay) Picart is currently an Associate Professor of English and Courtesy Associate Professor of Law at Florida State University. She is a philosopher and former molecular embryologist educated in the Philippines (B.S. biology, magna cum laude and M.A., with honors, in philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University), England (M.Phil., Sir Run Run Shaw Scholar and Wolfson Prize Winner, history and philosophy of science, Cambridge University), and the United Stats (Ph.D., with honors, philosophy, with doctoral minors in comparative literature, and aesthetics and criticism, The Pennsylvania State University).
She is the author of Resentment and “the Feminine” in Nietzsche’s Politico-Aesthetics (Penn State University Press, 1999); The Cinematic Rebirths of Frankenstein: Universal, Hammer and Beyond (Praeger, 2001); coauthored with Frank Smoot and Jayne Blodgett, The Frankenstein Film Sourcebook (Greenwood, 2001); Remaking the Frankenstein Myth on Film: Between Horror and Laughter (State University of New York Press, 2003); the Holocaust Film Sourcebook 2 Volumes (Praeger, 2004), and Inside Notes from the Outside (Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2004). Recent projects include: From Ballroom to DanceSport: Aesthetics, Athletics and Body Culture (State University of New York Press, advance release, December 2005); Inside Edge: Creating Ballroom Champions (Under Review, University Press of Florida); Images and Words, Words as Images: Updating Visual Culture Studies (Under Review, Oxford University Press); and with Cecil Greek, a co-edited anthology on images of the gothic in relation to representations of crime and violence in film and media (Under Review with Illinois University Press). She has published articles in film criticism, criminology, autoethnography, law, criminology, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, feminism and philosophy, philosophy/sociology of science, and phenomenology, as well as more than eighty popular pieces on Philippine art and culture as a columnist in various Korean and U.S. newspapers and magazines.
Most recently, her work in autoethnography, visual art, and dance have resulted in several videos that have been funded by grants from the Institute of Race and Ethnicity, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, St. Lawrence University, Swarthmore College, and with the technical assistance of the Office of Distributed and Distance Learning, Florida State University. She was trained in ballet, Hawaiian dance, and Philippine folk dance for fifteen years, and has been a student of ballroom since 1990. She developed a radio program, Ballroom Dancing with a Twist, which is currently being streamed over the internet, in collaboration with RadioTVFilipino Network, based in Boca Raton via:
http://www.radiotvphilippines.net/radio.htm. Her most recent dance-related accomplishments are: winning second place in the Millennium DanceSport Nationals in pro am cabaret dancing in June 2005, and capturing second place, with a different partner, in the U.S. Open to the Worlds pro am cabaret competition in September 2005, where 40 countries participated and the very best in the world competed. She is also a visual artist who has exhibited in the Philippines, South Korea and various parts of the U.S., and has started an art business, Kinaesthetics.
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