The Holocaust, Art, and Taboo

Transatlantic Exchanges on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Representation. Edited by Sophia Komor and Susanne Rohr.

Representations of the Holocaust changed dramatically in the 1990s, when film, literature, and works of visual art attracted international attention by provoking scandals. Holocaust art turned to genres and styles that had traditionally been considered taboo. This change raises many questions: Why the widespread provocation? Why are representational rules being broken at the turn of the millennium - rules that have been respected and observed for decades? What should we make of art of this kind? The contributors to this volume address these (and other) questions. They juxtapose conventional depictions of the Holocaust with recent works of art which reveal shifting paradigms in the fields of visual art, literature, film, pop culture, and aesthetic theory. The volume is the result of a conference held at the University of Hamburg in June 2008 and contains eleven essays, two personal accounts by the Jewish artists Anna Adam and Ruth Liberman and an epilogue by Heinz Ickstadt. - Contents: I. Testimonies: Anna Adam: Interview. - Ruth Liberman: Transcripts. -- II. Trauma, Loss, 'Holocaust Effect'. The Shoah in Visual Art: Carol Zemel: Right After. Aesthetics and Trauma in Survivor Visual Narratives. - Philippe Codde: Postmemory, Afterimages, Transferred Loss. First and Third Generation Holocaust Trauma in American Literature and Film. - Andrew Weinstein: Taking Abjection to Holocaust-Related Art. -- III. Theaters of Memory: Christopher W. E. Bigsby: Are We All Cain? Arthur Miller and the Holocaust. - Norman Kleeblatt: Theaters of Memory. Art and the Holocaust. -- IV. Of Homecoming and Bestselling: The Holocaust in Literature: Hilene Flanzbaum: The Holocaust as Bestseller. - Agnes C. Mueller: Beyond Taboo? Gender, Antisemitism, and Anti-Americanism in Contemporary German Literature. -- V. The Holocaust and Popular Culture: Susanne Rohr: 'Genocide Pop'. The Holocaust as Media Event. - Ole Johan Christiansen/Thomas Plischke: From Perpetrator to Victim and Back Again. The Supervillain Magneto as a Representative of the Holocaust in Superhero Comics. -- VI. Theorizing the Holocaust: Andrew S. Gross: 'After Auschwitz'. Adorno, Postmordernism, and the Anti-Aesthetic. - Sabine Sielke: Troping the Holocaust, Globalizing Trauma? -- VII. Epilogue: Heinz Ickstadt: Why I Don't Like Holocaust Studies Yet See No Escaping From It. - 272 Seiten mit 63 Abb., gebunden (American Studies - A Monograph Series; Vol. 189/Universitätsverlag Winter 2010)