Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services
Boydell & Brewer
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Second-Generation Holocaust Literature
Legacies of Survival and Perpetration
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2006
About this book
Expands the definition of second-generation literature to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators.
Among historical events of the 20th century, the Holocaust is unrivaled as the subject of both scholarly and literary writing. Literary responses include not only thousands of autobiographical and fictional texts written by survivors, but also, more recently, works by writers who are not survivors but nevertheless feel compelled to write about the Holocaust. Writers from what is known as the second generation have produced texts that express their feeling of being powerfully marked by events of which they have had no direct experience. This book expands the commonly-used definition of second-generation literature, which refers to texts written from the perspective ofthe children of survivors, to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators. With its innovative focus on the literary legacy of both groups, it investigates how second-generation writers employsimilar tropes of stigmatization to express their troubled relationships to their parents' histories. Through readings of nine American, German, and French literary texts, Erin McGlothlin demonstrates how an anxiety with signification is manifested in the very structure of second-generation literature, revealing the extent to which the literary texts themselves are marked by the continuing aftershocks of the Holocaust.
Erin McGlothlin is Assistant Professor of German at Washington University in St. Louis.
Among historical events of the 20th century, the Holocaust is unrivaled as the subject of both scholarly and literary writing. Literary responses include not only thousands of autobiographical and fictional texts written by survivors, but also, more recently, works by writers who are not survivors but nevertheless feel compelled to write about the Holocaust. Writers from what is known as the second generation have produced texts that express their feeling of being powerfully marked by events of which they have had no direct experience. This book expands the commonly-used definition of second-generation literature, which refers to texts written from the perspective ofthe children of survivors, to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators. With its innovative focus on the literary legacy of both groups, it investigates how second-generation writers employsimilar tropes of stigmatization to express their troubled relationships to their parents' histories. Through readings of nine American, German, and French literary texts, Erin McGlothlin demonstrates how an anxiety with signification is manifested in the very structure of second-generation literature, revealing the extent to which the literary texts themselves are marked by the continuing aftershocks of the Holocaust.
Erin McGlothlin is Assistant Professor of German at Washington University in St. Louis.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Erin McGlothlin
Erin McGlothlin is assistant professor of German at Washington University in St. Louis.
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
ix -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction: Rupture and Repair: Marking the Legacy of the Second Generation
1 - Part I. The Legacy of Survival
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
1: “A Tale Repeated Over and Over Again”: Polyidentity and Narrative Paralysis in Thane Rosenbaum’s Elijah Visible
43 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2: “In Auschwitz We Didn’t Wear Watches”: Marking Time in Art Spiegelman’s Maus
66 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
3: “Because We Need Traces”: Robert Schindel’s Gebürtig and the Crisis of the Second-Generation Witness
91 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
4: Documenting Absence in Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder and Katja Behrens’s “Arthur Mayer, or The Silence”
125 - Part II. The Legacy of Perpetration
-
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
5: “Under a False Name”: Peter Schneider’s Vati and the Misnomer of Genre
143 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
6: My Mother Wears a Hitler Mustache: Marking the Mother in Niklas Frank and Joshua Sobol’s Der Vater
174 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
7: The Future of Väterliteratur: Bernhard Schlink’s Der Vorleser and Uwe Timm’s Am Beispiel meines Bruders
199 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Conclusion: The “Glass Wall”: Marked by an Invisible Divide
228 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Works Cited
233 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index
247
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
February 19, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781571136855
Original publisher:
Camden House
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781571136855
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
