ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Robert Antelme's work at least anticipates, and to an extent also influences, the thought in this area of some of the most significant French writers of the second half of the twentieth century. It suggestion that the popularity of L'Espece humaine is in part intellectually grounded in its extraordinary anticipation of perhaps the key impulse behind much of the most prominent French thought of years. The chapter consider the implications of Antelme's testimony for the question of community. It addresses the question by first examining Antelme's discussions of the possibility of solidarity between the prisoners at Gandersheim. The chapter also suggests that the model of solidarity is related to versions of community deriving from other quarters of Antelme's own Parisian intellectual milieu; this will entail a detailed return to the political itinerary. It looks at texts by Nancy and Derrida in which Antelme's influence may be discerned.
