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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010282996 | D803 K37 2011 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
How do the spaces of the past stay with us through representations--whether literary or photographic? How has the Holocaust registered in our increasingly globally connected consciousness? What does it mean that this European event is often used as an interpretive or representational touchstone for genocides and traumas globally? In this interdisciplinary study, Kaplan asks and attempts to answer these questions by looking at historically and geographically diverse spaces, photographs, and texts concerned with the physical and/or mental landscape of the Holocaust and its transformations from the postwar period to the early twenty-first century.nbsp;Examining the intersections of landscape, postmemory, and trauma, Kaplan's text offers a significant contributionnbsp;to our understanding of the spatial, visual, and literary reach of the Holocaust.
Author Notes
Brett Ashley Kaplan is an Associate Professor in the Program in Comparative and World Literature and the Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This eclectic volume investigates political, cultural, physical, and psychological aspects of selected spaces and photographic and literary representations of the Holocaust. Most readers will find the section that considers the transformation of Hitler's Obersalzberg retreat into a documentation center and luxury hotel the most interesting. The highlight of the section focusing on photographic images of the Holocaust are the wartime photos of Lee Miller, which Kaplan insightfully observes combine the beautiful and the horrible, producing what he calls an "aesthetification of horror." Kaplan also considers Susan Silas's photographic series "Helmbrecht's Walk," in which she documents her 1998 retracing of a death march of 1945, and he correctly notes how little of the violence remains in the landscape. He sees Collier Schoor as an example of a newer generation of irreverent artists who explore the 21st-century relationship of people to perpetrators of atrocities. The author devotes the final section to author J. M. Coetzee, who, Kaplan argues, overlays the landscapes of South Africa with those of the Holocaust. He asserts that the themes of silence, complicity, and guilt throughout Coetzee's work are linked to his understanding of the Holocaust. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. W. Lagerwey Elmhurst College
Table of Contents
| List of Figures | p. xi |
| Prologue and Acknowledgments | p. xiii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Part I Burning Landscapes: The Transformation of Hitler's Holiday Retreat | |
| 1 The Obsersalzberg | p. 11 |
| 2 Eva's Cousin | p. 34 |
| 3 Past Present | p. 47 |
| Part II Burning Images: Three Photographers Explore Traumatic Landscapes | |
| 4 Lee Miller: No Stasis | p. 71 |
| 5 Susan Silas's Helmbrechts Walk | p. 99 |
| 6 Collier Schorr: Reenacting Nazis | p. 122 |
| Part III Burning Silence: The Uncanny Presence of the Holocaust in the Work of J.M. Coetzee | |
| 7 Life & Times | p. 141 |
| 8 Foe | p. 161 |
| 9 Elizabeth Costello and Disgrace | p. 184 |
| Concluding Remarks | p. 198 |
| Notes | p. 201 |
| Bibliography | p. 219 |
| Index | p. 243 |
