Une empathie spectrale ou le dibbouk qui hante la fiction du XXIe siècle

Abstract

In this article, I employ methods inspired by the spectral turn and trauma studies to discuss post-memorial fictions that use the figure of the dybbuk. The theme of possession of a living person by the spirit of the dead – the dybbuk, present in Jewish mysticism as a substantial contagion – when recontextualized in 21st-century fiction, intersects with empathy as an emotional contagion. In works such as Irène Kaufer's autofiction Dibbouks, Élie Wiesel’s Un désir fou de danser, and Tomek Heydinger's graphic novel Dibbouk, the dybbuk embodies post-traumatic ties between the living and the dead in the process of adopting an empathetic approach to historical loss. The analyzed rewritings align with LaCapra’s critique of empathy as projective or incorporative identification. The motif of disturbances in self-awareness and perception of reality during a confrontation with the spectral past illustrates the conflict between desire for and rejection of such an identification.