Re-examining the Holocaust through Literature
Editor: Aukje Kluge and Benn E. Williams
Date Of Publication: Feb 2009
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0176-8
Isbn: 1-4438-0176-3
In the late 1980s, Holocaust literature emerged as a provocative, but poorly defined, scholarly field. The essays in this volume reflect the increasingly international and pluridisciplinary nature of this scholarship and the widening of the definition of Holocaust literature to include comic books, fiction, film, and poetry, as well as the more traditional diaries, memoirs, and journals. Ten contributors from four countries engage issues of authenticity, evangelicalism, morality, representation, personal experience, and wish-fulfillment in Holocaust literature, which have been the subject of controversies in the US, Europe, and the Middle East.

Of interest to students and instructors of antisemitism, national and comparative literatures, theater, film, history, literary criticism, religion, and Holocaust studies, this book also contains an extensive bibliography with references in over twenty languages which seeks to inspire further research in an international context.

Aukje Kluge has taught the politics of identity at Emory University where she recently completed a master’s degree in Behavioral Science and Health Education. Currently, she is a doctoral fellow at the Emory’s Institute of the Liberal Arts and part of the Scholarly Inquiry and Research fellowship program. Her current research focuses on the historical and cultural context of addiction.

Benn E. Williams is completing a dissertation at the University of Illinois at Chicago on the history of denunciation in France. He has taught as a Visiting Lecturer at three local institutions. He is also a freelance translator, series editor for the Center for French Colonial Studies, and advisor to the new WWII series at CNRS Editions.

“Memoirs, diaries, novels, plays, poetry, even comics—Holocaust literature includes such writings and more. Absent the best of these works and sensitive interpretation of them, understanding of the Holocaust would be impoverished. The essays in these pages, skillfully edited and introduced by Aukje Kluge and Benn Williams, make available important examples of the sound analysis that the new voices of younger scholars are producing to advance the field of Holocaust studies. Clearly written, cogently argued, carefully documented, these chapters—each and all—contribute significantly to the task identified by this book’s title, Re-examining the Holocaust through Literature.”

—John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Founding Director, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College

“The Holocaust continues to shock, frighten and fascinate. Kluge and Williams have brought together a group of talented young scholars to analyze the literature of the Holocaust. They belong to a generation born long after the war, a generation who witnessed the decline of old ideologies and the blurring of the barriers between disciplines. Reflecting this backdrop their collection of essays offers a fresh and interesting approach to this oft studied subject.”

—Simon Kitson, Director of Research at the University of London Institute in Paris; Author of The Hunt for Nazi Spies (University of Chicago Press, 2008)

“Re-examining the Holocaust through Literature is an impressive collection offering new perspectives on representations of the Holocaust by the next generation of Holocaust scholars. The essays cover work ranging from Elie Wiesel to Art Spiegelman passing by way of Peter Weiss and Samuel Fuller; the 140 page International Bibliography of the Holocaust is a wonderful resource.”

—Kenneth Mouré, Chair, Department of History, University of California at Santa Barbara

“In one sense, Re-examininng the Holocaust through Literature reflects some of the ways that Holocaust scholarship has evolved over the past sixty years. But in another sense, this collection of scholarly essays edited by Aukje Klluge and Benn E. Williams asks us to reconsider a fundamental question: What counts as Holocaust literature? The essays in this volume challenge us as educators to explore our notions of what we think we already know, as well as what these new perspectives can provide as we continue to rethink, remake, and reinvigorate our teachings of the Holocaust.

Perhaps the most significant message of Re-examining the Holocaust through Literature is that, in reading and teaching about the Holocaust, the ‘truth’ is inextricable from the meanings created through multiple genres, disciplines and subject positions. The ‘International Bibliography of Holocaust Literature’ that concludes the volume provides an excellent resource for this ongoing quest.”

—Brian Kahn, Millikin University in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2011

Price Uk Gbp: 44.99
Price Us Usd: 89.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)