Roca Lizarazu, Maria (2017) Finding the Holocaust in metaphor : renegotiations of trauma in contemporary German- and Austrian-Jewish literature. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis investigates representations of the Holocaust and the Second World War across a range of German- and Austrian-Jewish writers who belong to the second or third generation born after the Holocaust. These writers relate to the events from the position of the “nonwitness” (Weissman 2004), and in the face of major shifts in Holocaust memory since the millennium: the disappearance of the survivor and eyewitness generation entails a transition from first-hand memories of the war period to an increasingly ritualised cultural memory of the events. This transformation intersects with larger changes in Holocaust memory in the last 15 years, such as the re- and hypermediation of Holocaust memory and the emergence of a globalised Erinnerungskultur. The Holocaust has therefore emerged as a highly discursivised “floating signifier” (Huyssen 2003), which travels transgenerationally, transmedially and transnationally.

Engaging with these shifts, I argue that Marianne Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory” (Hirsch 1997) and recent trauma theory remain embedded in a biologising framework of analysis that views cultural transmission in terms of contagious inheritance. Drawing on cultural and literary theories and transnational memory studies, I develop a new approach that focuses on the Holocaust as a form of “travelling trauma” (Tomsky 2011), tracing its remediation and recycling across geographical, cultural, medial, and representational boundaries. My readings of texts by Benjamin Stein, Maxim Biller, Vladimir Vertlib, and Eva Menasse explore how these authors (re-)negotiate the various travels of Holocaust memory in the age of remediation.

By initiating a dialogue between the realms of theory and contemporary fiction, this thesis engages with a broad body of recent German- and Austrian-Jewish Holocaust fiction, while at the same time critically investigating key paradigms in the field of memory and trauma studies.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PT Germanic literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature, World War, 1939-1945 -- Literature and the war, Jewish literature -- History and criticism, German literature -- Jewish authors, Austrian literature -- Jewish authors, Collective memory and literature
Official Date:	May 2017
Dates:	Date Event May 2017 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Fuchs, Anne
Sponsors:	University of Warwick. Chancellor International Scholarship ; University of Warwick. Graduate School ; University of Warwick. School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	266 leaves
Language:	eng

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