“HurbineK”: a journal for Primo Levi

HurbineK – Journal of Levian Studies – is a biannual publication of the Centro Primo Levi, from the Catholic Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). The editorial board acknowledges the growing interest in Primo Levi’s work across Brazil and attempts to respond to the pressing need to integrate Brazilian research into the international circuit of Levian studies. More than anything, this initiative evinces our conviction that the subject matters which pervade Primo Levi’s work remain meaningful to any individual or collective subject affected by dystopian dynamics and barbaric times. 

The book in which Levi scrutinized the years after he left Auschwitz and returned to Turin, his hometown, was named La tregua (1963) a title which tellingly points to the perennial projection of a dystopian shadow over the future of humankind. It is perhaps the extension of that shadow, its growth across time and space, that most distinctly preserves the relevance of Levi’s work.

Primo Levi (1919-1987) remains one of the most important thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century. Having survived Auschwitz, he began, in the 1940s, to construct a wide-spanning intellectual and literary oeuvre. His work first emerged publicly in 1947, with the publication of Se questo è un uomo.

After that, not only did Levi become one of the most prominent voices in the subgenre of testimonial literature, but he also produced a plethora of variously-engaged forms of writing, even if—as made evident by the last book he published, I sommersi e i salvati (1986)—he did remain permanently and decisively concerned with the experiment of the extermination camp. Indeed, that experiment is perhaps best seen as the sharp, dry needle of a compass which, in its revolution, engirds a myriad of circles.

The golden mean of Primo Levi’s at once open and polyhedral work can be found in two of his own self-definitions:

A journal dedicated to Primo Levi’s writings and themes must necessarily espouse not only a multi-disciplinary perspective, but an in-disciplinary one, even if editors, contributors and texts themselves might belong to specific disciplinary traditions. Ours is an enterprise and an opportunity to interweave two orders of complexity: (i) the diversity of subject matters aligned with Primo Levi’s oeuvre; and (ii) the range of intellectual, existential, and disciplinary angles from which such an oeuvre can be approached and interpellated. The project, promising and uncertain in equal measure, exempts us from the imperative of defining a sort of macro-concept of “multidisciplinarity”, as well as from the fruitless pursuit of a unified identity for Primo Levi, one assembled through the alleged juxtaposition of fragments.

Thus: not elucidation, but experimentation. Levian themes are virtually uncountable: the Camp, fascism, the Italian language and literary tradition, science fiction, literary creation, cultural criticism, scientific culture, anti-Semitism, the Jewish condition, language itself. Ultimately, the human condition. Such issues, which often overlap and allude to one another, also invite exploration into other matters—even into territories perhaps left untouched by the works themselves. Centered on Primo Levi’s productions and themes, HurbineK seeks to gaze into the world and into what is said about the world. Our purpose is to generously and thoughtfully plunge into abysses and embrace expectations.

The story of Hurbinek—the Auschwitz boy who could not speak—is told in La tregua and engraved in the passages which open the present issue. Primo Levi tells us of the unlikely presence of a child who, in blatant and utter violation of the Auschwitz no-birth principle, came to life in a death camp. Foreign to any of the multiple languages spoken in that place, the stuttering Auschwitz infant commands us to stare at the ongoing tension between the immanent silence of the end and the unquenchable urgency of expression. Primo Levi’s works (in particular, all the texts which directly address life in the Camp) seem to have been guided by a decision to enable Hurbinek to be heard, to force us to listen to him, and to carve such dynamics into the very fabric of our gaze.

HurbineK welcomes articles and essays in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French and English, written by researchers and experts interested in Primo Levi’s work. This is also a space for any contributions somehow informed by the themes the oeuvre galvanizes. The Journal will be published bi-annually – in on line format and open access - , and texts will be submitted to peer review. In addition to new contributions, HurbineK will also publish classical or foundational studies of significant relevance in the body of Levian critical literature. The Journal will also feature a session with information about Brazilian studies on Primo Levi and recent international releases.

The already published issues of Hurbinek can be accessed through the link (https://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/rev_Hurbinek.php), which also provides access, in Portuguese and English, to the instructions for submitting contributions, which should be sent to hurbinek@puc-rio.br.
Further information regarding the journal can be requested through the same email address.

Renato Lessa
(rlessa@puc-rio.br)

Centro Primo Levi/PUC-Rio