This book discusses the issues underlying contemporary Holocaust fiction. Using Gillian Rose’s theory of Holocaust piety, it argues that, rather than enhancing our understanding of the Holocaust, contemporary fiction has instead become overly focused on gratuitous representations of bodies in pain. The book begins by discussing the locations and imagery which have come to define our understanding of the Holocaust, before then highlighting how this gradual simplification has led to an increasing sense of emotional distance from the historical past. Holocaust fiction, the book argues, attempts to close this emotional and temporal distance by creating an emotional connection to bodies in pain. Using different concepts relating to embodied experience – from Sonia Kruks’ notion of feeling-with to Alison Landsberg’s prosthetic memory – the book analyses several key examples of Holocaust literature and film to establish whether fiction still possesses the capacity to approach the Holocaust impiously.
Author(s): David John Dickson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 265
City: Cham
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Methodology
Critical Field
Structure
References
Chapter 2: Holocaust Synecdoche: Surrendering to the Simplifying Impulse
The Depreciating Value of the Auschwitz Tattoo
The Many Facets of the Cattle Car
The Enduring Legacy of the Sexualised Sufferer
Conclusion
References
Filmography
Chapter 3: Second-Generation Fiction and the Legacy of the Hinge Generation
Thane Rosenbaum and the Failure of Transmission
The Failure of Recovery
Shalom Auslander and the Rootless Holocaust
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Visualising the Holocaust: Landmarks, Photographs and Post-memory
Representing the Arrival Process
Representing Life and Death in Auschwitz
A Gratuitous Approach to Representation
Conclusion
References
Filmography
Chapter 5: Contemporary Fiction and Embodied Experience: Feeling the Holocaust
Children’s Holocaust Fiction and Embodied Trauma
The Holocaust Fiction of Heather Morris: Sexual Violence as Spectacle
Anna Ellory’s The Rabbit Girls: ‘Feeling-With’ Women’s Trauma
Conclusion
References
Filmography
Chapter 6: Between Irreverence and Impiety: Laying the Foundations for a Rosean Approach to Holocaust Representation
Shalom Auslander and Inhabitable Bodies
Jojo Rabbit, Holocaust Laughter and the Question of Impiety
Representing Stella Goldschlag: Takis Würger and Missed Potential
Conclusion
References
Filmography
Chapter 7: Conclusion
References
Index
