ABSTRACT
Addressing a recent and increasingly visible form of disturbing body argument, a September 30, 2012, New York Times article featured Israeli grandchildren of Auschwitz survivors choosing to duplicate the notorious numerical tattoos imposed upon the fl esh of their grandparents decades ago on their own, progenic skin (Rudoren, 2012). Both the practice and the timing of such traumatic self-stigmatization call for careful analysis of salient political, cultural, and corporeal dynamics. While what we call trauma tattoos function as disturbing arguments, as both self-expressive identity construction (for the wearer) and rhetorical reminder to never forget (for the viewer), we are concerned primarily with how the progenic tattoo functions as a specifi c type of reappropriation, namely resignifi cation.
