The Holocaust across Borders: Trauma, Atrocity, and Representation in Literature and Culture

(Hardback)

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Description

Literature of the Holocaust courses, whether taught in high schools or at universities, necessarily cover texts from a broad range of international contexts. Instructors are required, regardless of their own disciplinary training, to become comparatists and discuss all works with equal expertise. This books offers analyses of the ways in which representations of the Holocaustwhether in text, film, or material cultureare shaped by national context, providing a valuable pedagogical source in terms of both content and methodology. As memory yields to post-memory, nation of origin plays a larger role in each re-telling, and the chapters in this book explore this notion covering well-known texts like Night (Hungary), Survival in Auschwitz (Italy), MAUS (United States), This Way to the Gas (Poland), and The Reader (Germany), while also introducing lesser-known representations from countries like Argentina or Australia.

Reviews

Flanzbaum acknowledges in her introduction that she was "compelled to examine the relative use of Holocaust literature across national boundaries" when she realized that Bernhard Schlink's novel The Reader (1995) would be read differently in different countries. This collection includes analyses of fiction, memoir, television, film, and the Canadian National Holocaust Monument. The works studied come from Australia, Austria, the US, Italy, Germany, Israel, France, the UK, and Argentina. All the essays are well researched and competent, but deserving special mention are Victoria Aarons's essay on Nora Krug's Belonging, Sarah Painitz's essay on Ruth Klger's less-known book unterwegs verloren, Amy Kaminsky's study of Edgardo Cozarinsky's Lejos de dnde, and Marat Grinberg's analysis of three Holocaust television series. The contributors bring differing theories to their essays[.] Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Author Bio

Hilene S. Flanzbaum is the Allegra Stewart Chair of Modern Literature at Butler University.