Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Holocaust Memory in the New Millennium— Between Continuity and Change
- 1 Rethinking Testimony: Authenticity, “Travelling Memories,” and Post-Holocaust Jewish Identities in Benjamin Stein’s Die Leinwand
- 2 “Im Land der Väter und Verräter”: Intertextuality, Influence, and the Problem of Symbiosis in Maxim Biller’s Writing
- 3 Contrapuntal Memory, Dialogism, and Irony: Challenges to Transnationalism in Vladimir Vertlib’s Das besondere Gedächtnis der Rosa Masur
- 4 From the Family to the Metamemorial Novel: Eva Menasse’s Fiction
- Conclusion: The Critique of the Critique of Representation— Self- and Metareflexivity in Contemporary Holocaust Fiction
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Contrapuntal Memory, Dialogism, and Irony: Challenges to Transnationalism in Vladimir Vertlib’s Das besondere Gedächtnis der Rosa Masur
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Holocaust Memory in the New Millennium— Between Continuity and Change
- 1 Rethinking Testimony: Authenticity, “Travelling Memories,” and Post-Holocaust Jewish Identities in Benjamin Stein’s Die Leinwand
- 2 “Im Land der Väter und Verräter”: Intertextuality, Influence, and the Problem of Symbiosis in Maxim Biller’s Writing
- 3 Contrapuntal Memory, Dialogism, and Irony: Challenges to Transnationalism in Vladimir Vertlib’s Das besondere Gedächtnis der Rosa Masur
- 4 From the Family to the Metamemorial Novel: Eva Menasse’s Fiction
- Conclusion: The Critique of the Critique of Representation— Self- and Metareflexivity in Contemporary Holocaust Fiction
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction: Scrutinizing the “Transna tional Turn”
TRANSNATIONAL AND/OR TRANSCULTURAL perspectives on the Holocaust are undoubtedly en vogue, as is demonstrated by the many recent conference calls, publications, and research clusters on the theme. This boom is indicative of a larger transnational or transcultural turn, which, over the last ten years, has reached disciplines as diverse as sociology, history, modern languages, and, most importantly, memory studies. Transcultural/- national memory can be understood as an intervention into the field of memory studies, which promotes the fundamental interrelatedness of cultural and mnemonic phenomena. It focuses on literal and metaphorical instances of border crossing, intermingling, travel, and translation, drawing attention to “the palimpsestic overlays, the hybrid assemblages, the non-linear interactions, and the fuzzy edges of group belonging.” The idea of transnational memory ties in with a broader dynamization of memory studies, which entails a shift in focus away from (cultural) memory as a “product” to the procedural character of memory formation, transportation, and translation.
The increasing globalization of almost all spheres of social life, coupled with a new sense of “connectivity” brought about by digital technologies, has called into question many of the core assumptions guiding memory studies. This particularly pertains to what Astrid Erll and others have identified as the “methodological nationalism/culturalism” of memory studies, that is, the implicit understanding of cultures as separate and clearly delineated “spheres” or “containers,” and the “assumption of an isomorphy between territory, social formation, mentalities, and memories.” In response to this, cultures and memories have been increasingly conceptualized as dynamic, porous, and constituted through exchange—they are not discrete and uniform but entangled and hybrid. In terms of research, this has brought forward a focus on phenomena that emerge at the intersection of nations and cultures or cut across them. This concentration on national, cultural, and mnemonic interlinkages also challenges traditional understandings of the nation or culture. Lucy Bond and Jessica Rapson therefore regard transcultural memory
as describing two disparate dynamics in contemporary commemorative practice: firstly, the travelling memory within and between national, ethnic and religious collectives; secondly, forums of remembrance that aim beyond the idea of political, ethnic, linguistic or religious borders as containers for our understanding of the past [italics in the original].
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- Information
- Renegotiating PostmemoryThe Holocaust in Contemporary German-Language Jewish Literature, pp. 95 - 129Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020