Memory Matters: Generational Responses to Germany's Nazi Past in Recent Women's Literature

Caroline Schaumann

Published by De Gruyter 2008

Memory Matters

Generational Responses to Germany's Nazi Past in Recent Women's Literature

Caroline Schaumann

Volume 4 in the series Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110206593

Overview
Contents

About this book

Memory Matters juxtaposes in tripartite structure texts by a child of German bystanders (Wolf), an Austrian-Jewish child-survivor (Klüger), a daughter of Jewish émigrés (Honigmann), a daughter of an officer involved in the German resistance (Bruhns), a granddaughter of a baptized Polish Jew (Maron), and a granddaughter of German refuges from East Prussia (Dückers). Placed outside of the distorting victim-perpetrator, Jewish-German, man-woman, and war-postwar binary, it becomes visible that the texts neither complete nor contradict each other, but respond to one another by means of inspiration, reverberation, refraction, incongruity, and ambiguity. Focusing on genealogies of women, the book delineates a different cultural memory than the counting of (male-inflected) generations and a male-dominated Holocaust and postwar literature canon. It examines intergenerational conflicts and the negotiation of memories against the backdrop of a complicated mother-daughter relationship that follows unpredictable patterns and provokes both discord and empathy. Schaumann’s approach questions the assumption that German-gentile and German-Jewish postwar experiences are necessarily diametrically opposed (i.e. respond to a “negative symbiosis”) and uncovers intersections and continuities in addition to conflicts.

Author / Editor information

Caroline Schaumann, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Reviews

"Memory Matters constitutes a major contribution to a shift in critical discourses regarding (post)memories of Nazi Germany - one that carefully examines 'Memory contests' (Fuchs) in contemporary German literature while questioning familiar oppositions and assumptions established by previous generations of scholars and writers."
Friederike Eigler in: Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie 2/2010

"[...] the book is a valuable contribution to debates about the Holocaust, and Schaumann ensures through her very persuasively crafted discussion of new complexities and ambiguities that these debates are not mainstreamed and thus trivialized."
Kamakshi P. Murti in: German Studies Review 1/2010

"Highly recommended."
M. Shafi in: Choice 2/2009

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Table of Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
War Children and Child Survivors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Memories and Mourning: Christa Wolf s Patterns of Childhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
Trauma and Testimony: Ruth Klüger s weiter leben Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
The Children of Survivors and Bystanders Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Barbara Honigmann s Belated Appropriation of her Jewish Heritage: From Roman von einem Kinde (Novel by a Child) to Ein Kapitel aus meinem Leben (A Chapter of My Life) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Wibke Bruhns s Father-Portrait: My Father s Country: The Story of a German Family Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
The Grandchildren of Nazi Victims, Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Bystanders Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Images and Imagination: Monika Maron s Pavel s Letters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Tanja Dückers s Sensual Historiography:Ž Himmelskörper (Celestial Bodies) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Backmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Front matter: 13
- Main content: 345
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 11
Keywords: Women's literature; generation; Holocaust (in literature); National Socialism (in literature)

eBook

Published: August 27, 2008
ISBN: 9783110206593

Hardcover

Published: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 9783110202434