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Ellen Fine's book is full of original insights, beautifully written and structured. I could not put it down. It is a very important study." -- Rosette Lamont, Queens College and Graduate School, City University of New York "By treating Wiesel's novels as literary-spiritual stages in the development of Wiesel's larger experience, as a survivor-witness-writer, Dr. Fine's book takes on an inherently dramatic character which makes it alive and exciting as well as instructive." -- Terrence Des Pres, Colgate University "Fine clarifies Wiesel's intentions, especially illuminating the complex variations on the themes of speech and silence, fathers and sons, escape and return--in short, the ideas around which Wiesel organizes his literary universe. No one has done this before so thoroughly." -- Lawrence Langer, Simmons College
The first multidisciplinary study of its kind, Breaking Crystal examines how members of the generation after the Holocaust in Israel and the United States confront through their own imaginations a traumatic event they have not directly experienced. Among the questions this groundbreaking work raises are: Whose memory is it? What will the collective memory of the Holocaust be in the twenty-first century, after the last survivors have given testimony? How in the aftermath of the Holocaust do we read and write literature and history? How is the memory inscribed in film and art? Is the appropriation of the Holocaust to political agendas a desecration of the six million Jews? What will the children of survivors pass on to the next generation?
Fantasies of Witnessing explores how and why those deeply interested in the Holocaust, yet with no direct, familial connection to it, endeavor to experience it vicariously through sites or texts designed to make it "real" for nonwitnesses. Gary Weissman argues that far from overwhelming nonwitnesses with its magnitude of horror, the Holocaust threatens to feel distant and unreal. A prevailing rhetoric of "secondary" memory and trauma, he contends, and efforts to portray the Holocaust as an immediate and personal experience, are responses to an encroaching sense of unreality: "In America, we are haunted not by the traumatic impact of the Holocaust, but by its absence. When we take an interest...
Publisher's description: The many powerful accounts of the Holocaust have given rise to women's voices, and yet few researchers have analyzed these perspectives to learn what the horrifying events meant for women in particular and how they related to them. In Experience and Expression, the authors take on this challenge, providing the first book-length gendered analysis of women and the Holocaust, a topic that is emerging as a new field of inquiry in its own right. The collection explores an array of fascinating topics: rescue and resistance, the treatment of Roma and Sinti women, the fate of female forced laborers, Holocaust politics, nurses at so-called euthanasia centers, women's experiences of food and hunger in the camps, the uses and abuses of Anne Frank, and the representations of the Holocaust in art, film, and literature in the postwar era.
Austin Sinclair and Jack Winston grew up together on the poor side of town-one quiet sober and tenacious; the other a reckless charmer always seeking a challenge. And they shared a love for tennis that forged an unlikely bond-and incited a fierce rivalry-between them. Then adult life took them in different directions. Now they are grown men - mature, accomplished and middle-aged. And a chance reunion in a crowded restaurant results in a friendly, fateful invitation to compete once again at Austin's exclusive tennis club. But from the first serve on an impeccable clay court to the final, breathless point of a truly unforgettable match, unresolved resentments and tensions will determine the pace of the play. For every lob and backhand, every point surrendered or won, brings with it serious questions about the past and the choices made. With each set comes potentially explosive revelations about love, money and the nature of competition.
Challenging the notion that Jewish American and Holocaust literature have exhausted their limits, this volume reexamines these closely linked traditions in light of recent postmodern theory. Composed against the tumultuous background of great cultural transition and unprecedented state-sponsored systematic murder, Jewish American and Holocaust literature both address the concerns of postmodern human existence in extremis. In addition to exploring how various mythic and literary themes are deconstructed in the lurid light of Auschwitz, this book provides critical reassessments of Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth, as well as contemporary Jewish American writers who are extending this vibrant tradition into the new millennium. These essays deepen and enrich our understanding of the Jewish literary tradition and the implications of the Shoah.
Charlotte Delbo, a non-Jew sent to Auschwitz for being a member of the French resistance movement, recalls the poems, vignettes, and meditations that fed her companions' spirits, interweaving her experiences with the sufferings of others and depicting dignity and decency in the face of inhumanity.
As one of Okinawa's most insightful writers and social critics, Medoruma Shun has highlighted the problems and limits of conventional representation of the Battle of Okinawa, raised new questions and concerns about the nature of Okinawan war memory, and expanded the possibilities of representing war through his groundbreaking and prize-winning fiction, editorials, essays, and speaking engagements. Yet, his writing has not been analyzed in regard to how his experience and identity as the child of two survivors of the Battle of Okinawa have powerfully shaped his understanding of the war and his literary craft. This book examines Okinawan war memory through the lens of Medoruma’s war fiction,...
Writing about the Holocaust and writing for young readers evoke two quite separate sets of concerns which are not always mutually compatible. The first half of Representing the Holocaust focuses on how literary material can present historically verifiable material. The second half examines how such materials will be perceived by young readers; whether they will be able to determine any boundaries between fictionality and factuality, and what motivates young readers to keep reading. The work concludes by placing the study in the context of Holocaust education.
An important work on the Holocaust by a concentration camp survivor.