An analysis of West German literature as it tries to come to terms with the holocaust and its impact on post-war German society.

Focusing on individual authors from Heinrich Boll to Gunther Grass, Hermann Lenz to Peter Schneider, The Language of Silence offers an analysis of West German literature as it tries to come to terms with the Holocaust and its impact on postwar West German society. Exploring postwar literature as the barometer of Germany's unconsciously held values as well as of its professed conscience, Ernestine Schlant demonstrates that the confrontation with the Holocaust has shifted over the decades from repression, circumvention, and omission to an open acknowledgement of the crimes. Yet even today a 'language of silence' remains since the victims and their suffering are still overlooked and ignored. Learned and exacting, Schlant's study makes an important contribution to our understanding of postwar German culture.

Taking Alpha and Omega of human experience, both in terms of human history and individual experience, as his framework, George Schloss signposts the journey from Alpha at the outset, where we move from wholeness into separation, through the evolution of consciousness in a history which ultimately creates the conditions for reintegration at Omega. We are thus returned to wholeness enhanced by the experience and the fruits, not simply of the individual life, but of the history of mankind: the means of the reintegration and conversion are a series of experiments designed by Douglas Harding. A two volume edition: Volume 1 - Essays, Volume 2 - Letters

"Nobody in the family, except Aunt Ruth, talks about Ellen's grandmother Lola, who had been swallowed up by the circus then spit out as a woman who tamed tigers and got away scot free for killing her husband. Just as no one talks about the bruises Ellen can't hide"--

A leading American anthropologist analyzes the many vitally important ways in which people "talk" to one another without the use of words. "The Silent Language shows how cultural factors influence the individual behind his back, without his knowledge." —Erich Fromm The pecking order in a chicken yard, the fierce competition in a school playground, every unwitting gesture and action—this is the vocabulary of the "silent language." According to Dr. Hall, the concepts of space and time are tools with which all human beings may transmit messages. Space, for example, is the outgrowth of an animal's instinctive defense of his lair and is reflected in human society by the office worker's jealous defense of his desk, or the guarded, walled patio of a Latin-American home. Similarly, the concept of time, varying from Western precision to Easter vagueness, is revealed by the businessman who pointedly keeps a client waiting, or the South Pacific islander who murders his neighbor for an injustice suffered twenty years ago.

Izydora Dąmbska (1904-1982) was a Polish philosopher; a student of Kazimierz Twardowski, and his last assistant. The present volume includes twenty eight translations of her representative papers.