The Holocaust in American Art

HS 32 211 / 7 CP
WS 2004/2005
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Susanne Rohr
Telephone: office: 83 85 28 79; home: 454 15 78; e-mail: [email protected]
Office hours: Tuesday, 2 – 3 p.m., Room 208
The Holocaust in American Art
Tuesday 12 – 2 p.m.
Room 201
Course starts: 19.10.2004
In this seminar we will explore the representation of the Holocaust in American art (literature, film and the fine
arts) over the past 50 years or so. We will trace how art has dealt with the phenomenon of the Holocaust from
the beginnings in the late 1940s until the most immediate past and how in the process the understanding of the
event itself and the parameters of its representation have changed. While strategies of representing the Holocaust
have always been a subject of debate, beginning in the 1990s the basic principles of the controversy have shifted
significantly. We will discuss how this change can be accounted for and if and how it can be correlated with the
process commonly called "The Americanization of the Holocaust". The seminar will comprise film screenings,
guest lectures and a trip to the Jüdisches Museum Berlin. There will be a sequel to this seminar in the summer
semester 2005, taught by Stefan Brandt from the department of culture, that will explore the topic from a
Cultural Studies perspective.
We will read and study the following novels:
Elie Wiesel, Night (1958)
Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker (1961)
Leslie Epstein, King of the Jews (1979)
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated (2002)
We will also deal with the following essay, poem, short story and comic book: Norman Mailer, "The White
Negro" (1957); Allen Ginsberg, "Kaddish" (1959); Cynthia Ozick, "Envy" (1969) Art Spiegelman, Maus II
(1986) as well as with two of the following four films: Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955); Judgment at
Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) or The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964) or Sophie's Choice (Alan Pakula,
1982).
Credit requirements:
Regular attendance, oral presentation, term paper of 15-20 pages length to be handed in no later than 28
March, 2005. Please note: There is no extension of this deadline, I will not accept essays handed in later than
that date.
A summary of the oral presentation and guiding questions for the required reading have to be
posted on the e-learning platform of the course one week prior to the presentation. Further
information on the procedure will be given in class. Please note: All groups have to discuss their
presentation with me during my office hours one week ahead of the actual date.
Course material: You can buy the books by Wallant, Epstein and Foer at Buch Express, Unter den Eichen 97,
12203 Berlin, Tel.: 831 40 04. For those who buy all the three books there the Buch Express offers a special
price. A reader containing the material by Wiesel, Ginsberg, Mailer, Ozick, and Spiegelman can be obtained at
Copy-Repro-Center at Habelschwerdter Allee 37 (next to the Rostlaube’s parking lot, vis à vis the Department
of Philosophy). You can find further material on the reserve shelf (Handapparat # 22) in the library.
Introductory text:
Hilene Flanzbaum, ed. The Americanization of the Holocaust. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.
Syllabus
I.
19.10.04
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
II.
26.10.04
INTRODUCTION OF BACKGROUND AND KEY CONCEPTS
Please read and prepare for today:
Hilene Flanzbaum. "The Americanization of the Holocaust".
Introduction. The Americanization of the Holocaust. Ed. Hilene
Flanzbaum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. 1-17.
Peter Novick. Introduction. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1999. 1-15.
Texts in your reader!
III.
02.11.04
THE 1950S – TESTIMONY I:
FILM SCREENING I
Alain Resnais, Night and Fog (1955)
IV.
09.11.04
THE 1950S – TESTIMONY II:
Please read and prepare for today:
Elie Wiesel, Night (1958)
V.
16.11.04
THE LATE 1950S – INDIRECT, YET REBELLIOUS STATEMENTS:
Please read and prepare for today:
Norman Mailer, "The White Negro" (1957)
Allan Ginsberg, "Kaddish" (1959)
VI.
23.11.04
THE EARLY 1960IES – SEARCHING FOR THE VOICE I
Please read and prepare for today:
Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker (1961), Chapter 1-13
VII.
30.11.04
THE EARLY 196OIES – SEARCHING FOR THE VOICE II
Please read and prepare for today:
Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker (1961), Chapter 14-end
VIII. 07.12.04
LATE 1960IES – ONE VERY STRICT ONE
Please read and prepare for today:
Cynthia Ozick, "Envy" (1969)
IX.
FILM SCREENING II
To be determined:
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961, Stanley Kramer; 178 min.)
or
The Pawnbroker (1964, Sidney Lumet; 116 min.)
or
Sophie's Choice (1982, Alan Pakula; 150 min.)
14.12.04
20.12.04 – 02.01.05
* SEMESTER BREAK! ENJOY AND RELAX! *
X.
04.01.05
THE 1970IES: BLACK HUMOR BEGINNING TO SEEP IN I
Please read and prepare for today:
Leslie Epstein, King of the Jews (1979), Chapter 1-5
XI.
11.01.05
TRIP TO JÜDISCHES MUSEUM BERLIN
Due to extensive security precautions we have to meet at 11.30 at
the group entrance of Jüdisches Museum, Lindenstr. 9-14,
10969 Berlin (U Hallesches Tor, U Kochstraße).
We will first get a tour through the museum to study the architecture
and will then meet for a discussion with the artist Joachim Seinfeld.
End of the discussion at 13.30. If you wish, you may stay in the
museum to embark on an individual tour.
XII.
18.01.05
THE 1970IES: BLACK HUMOR BEGINNING TO SEEP IN II
Please read and prepare for today:
Leslie Epstein, King of the Jews (1979), Chapter 6-end
XIII. 25.01.05
THE 1980IES: THE HOLOCAUST AS COMIC STRIP
GUEST LECTURE BY DR. ANNETTE JAEL LEHMANN ON
ART SPIEGELMAN'S MAUS.
Please read and prepare for today:
Art Spiegelman, Maus II (1986)
XIV. 01.02.05
THE NEW MILLENNIUM – MORE HUMOR SEEPING IN I
Please read and prepare for today:
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (2002), until letter
from Alexander of 17 November 1997.
XV.
THE NEW MILLENNIUM – MORE HUMOR SEEPING IN II
Please read and prepare for today:
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (2002), from above
mentioned letter until the end.
08.02.05
XVI. 15.02.05
THE NEW MILLENNIUM – WHAT ABOUT POLITICAL
CORRECTNESS, THOUGH?
The Holocaust in the Visual Arts.
Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Trans. Daniel
Heller-Roazen. New York: Zone Books, 1999.
Avisar, Ilan. Screening the Holocaust: Cinema's Images of the Unimaginable. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1988.
Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1993.
Chametzky, Jules, et al., eds. Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology. New York:
Norton, 2001.
Cole, Tim. Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler; How History is Bought,
Packaged, and Sold. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Des Pres, Terrence. "Holocaust Laughter?". Writing and the Holocaust. Ed. Berel Lang. New
York: Holmes & Meier, 1988. 216-233.
Doneson, Judith E. The Holocaust in American Film. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 1987.
Felman, Shoshana, und Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,
Psychoanalysis, and History. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Finkelstein, Norman G. The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish
Suffering. London: Verso, 2000.
Flanzbaum, Hilene. "The Americanization of the Holocaust". Introduction. The
Americanization of the Holocaust. Ed. Hilene Flanzbaum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 1999. 1-17.
Gilman, Sander. "Is Life Beautiful? Can the Shoah Be Funny? Some Thoughts on Recent and
Older Films". Critical Inquiry 26.2 (2000): 279-308.
Gross, Andrew, und Michael Hoffman. "Some Reflections on a Holocaust Imposter:
Fragments and its Tortured History". Bad Subjects 61 (September 2002).
http://www.badsubjects.com.
Hartman, Geoffrey H. "The Book of Destruction". Probing the Limits of Representation:
Nazism and the "Final Solution". Ed. Saul Friedlander. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.
318-334.
–––. The Longest Shadow: In the Aftermath of the Holocaust. Bloomington: Indiana UP,
1996.
Howe, Irving. "Writing and the Holocaust". Selected Writings 1859-1990. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. 424-445.
Huyssen, Andreas. "Denkmal und Erinnerung im Zeitalter der Postmoderne". Mahnmale des
Holocaust: Motive, Rituale und Stätten des Gedenkens. Ed. James E. Young. München:
Prestel, 1994. 9-19.
–––. "The Voids of Berlin". Critical Inquiry 24.1 (1997): 57-81.
Insdorf, Annette. Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust. New York: Random House,
1983.
Kramer, Sven. Auschwitz im Widerstreit: Zur Darstellung der Shoah in Film, Philosophie und
Literatur. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, 1999.
–––. Witness through the Imagination: Jewish American Holocaust Literature. Detroit:
Wayne State UP, 1989.
LaCapra, Dominick. Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1994.
–––. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.
–––. The Longest Shadow. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996.
Lange, Sigrid. Authentisches Medium: Faschismus und Holocaust in ästhetischen
Darstellungen der Gegenwart. Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 1999.
Langer, Lawrence L. Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. New York: Oxford UP,
1995.
–––. The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.
–––. Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory. New Haven: Yale UP, 1991.
Levy, Daniel, und Natan Sznaider. Erinnerung im globalen Zeitalter: Der Holocaust.
Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2001.
Mintz, Alan. Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America. Seattle: U
of Washington P, 2001.
Nirumand, Mariam. "Americanization" of the Holocaust. Berliner Beiträge zur Amerikanistik
2. Berlin: J. F. Kennedy-Institut, 1995.
Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
–––. "Is the Holocaust an American Memory?" Ernst Fraenkel Vorträge zur amerikanischen
Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Geschichte und Kultur 8. Hrsg. Susanne Rohr und
Sabine Sielke. Berlin: John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien, 2002. 1-19.
Porras, Krystyna Arias. "'The Holocaust is also mine': David Grossmanns Stichwort: Liebe –
Der Roman eines israelischen Schriftstellers der zweiten Generation". Bilder des
Holocaust: Literatur – Film – Bildende Kunst. Hrsg. Manuel Köppen und Klaus R.
Scherpe. Köln: Böhlau, 1997. 109-129.
Rohr, Susanne. "'Playing Nazis', 'mirroring evil': Die Amerikanisierung des Holocaust und
neue Formen seiner Repräsentation". Amerikastudien / American Studies 47.4 (2002):
539-553.
Rosenbaum, Alan S., ed. Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide.
With a Foreword by Israel W. Charny. Boulder: Westview P, 1996.
Rosenfeld, Alvin H. "The Americanization of the Holocaust". Commentary 99.6 (1995): 3540.
Rosenfeld, Alvin H., ed. Thinking about the Holocaust: After Half a Century. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1997.
Sollors, Werner. "Holocaust and Hiroshima: American Ethnic Prose Writers Face the
Extreme." PMLA 118.1 (2003): 56-61.
Steinberger, Petra, ed. Die Finkelstein-Debatte. München: Piper, 2001.
Thiele, Martina. Publizistische Kontroversen über den Holocaust im Film. Münster: Lit,
2002.
Young, James E. "Looking into the Mirrors of Evil". Foreword. Mirroring Evil: Nazi
Imagery/Recent Art. Ed. Norman L. Kleeblatt. New York/New Brunswick: The Jewish
Museum and Rutgers UP, 2001. xv-xviii.
–––. Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.
–––. At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and
Architecture. New Haven: Yale UP, 2002.
Zucker, David J. "Midrash and Modern American Jewish Literature". Studies in American
Jewish Literature 11.1 (1992): 7-21.
The Holocaust in American Art
List of Oral reports.
Please sign up and give name, telephone number and e-mail address!
IV.
09.11.04
THE 1950S – TESTIMONY II:
Elie Wiesel, Night (1958)
Material:
James E. Young. "On Rereading Holocaust Diaries and Memoirs." Writing and
Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. 15-39.
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V.
16.11.04
THE LATE 1950S – INDIRECT, YET REBELLIOUS STATEMENTS:
Norman Mailer, "The White Negro" (1957)
Allan Ginsberg, "Kaddish" (1959)
Material:
Please develop questions to pre-structure the discussion.
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VI.
23.11.04
THE EARLY 1960IES – SEARCHING FOR THE VOICE I
Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker (1961), Chapter 1-13
Material:
Here, I need 4 students to present the "Roundtable Discussion" by Raul Hilberg,
Cynthia Ozick, Aharon Appelfeld, Saul Friedländer. Writing and the Holocaust. Ed.
Berel Lang. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988. 271-290.
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VII.
30.11.04
THE EARLY 196OIES – SEARCHING FOR THE VOICE II
Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker (1961), Chapter 14-end
Material:
Lore Segal. "Memory: The Problems of Imagining the Past." Writing and the
Holocaust. Ed. Berel Lang. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988. 58-65.
Irving Howe. "Writing and the Holocaust." Writing and the
Holocaust. Ed. Berel Lang. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988. 175-199.
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VIII. 07.12.04
LATE 1960IES – ONE VERY STRICT ONE
Cynthia Ozick, "Envy" (1969)
Material:
Alan Mintz. "Two Models in the Study of Holocaust Representation." Popular
Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America. Seattle: U of Washington
P, 2001. 36-84.
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X.
04.01.05
THE 1970IES: BLACK HUMOR BEGINNING TO SEEP IN I
Leslie Epstein, King of the Jews (1979), Chapter 1-5
Material:
Leslie Epstein. "Writing about the Holocaust." Writing and the Holocaust. Ed. Berel
Lang. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988. 261-270.
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XII.
18.01.05
THE 1970IES: BLACK HUMOR BEGINNING TO SEEP IN II
Leslie Epstein, King of the Jews (1979), Chapter 6-end
Material:
Andrew S. Gross and Michael J. Hoffman. "Memory, Authority, and Identity:
Holocaust Studies in Light of the Wilkomirski Debate." Biography 27.1 (2004): 2547.
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XIV. 01.02.05
WRITING IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM – MORE HUMOR SEEPING IN I
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (2002), until letter
from Alexander of 17 November 1997.
Material:
Sander Gilman. "Is Life Beautiful? Can the Shoah Be Funny? Some Thoughts on
Recent and Older Films". Critical Inquiry 26.2 (2000): 279-308.
Slavoj Zizek. "Camp Comedy."
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2000_04/camp.html
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XV.
08.02.05
THE NEW MILLENNIUM – MORE HUMOR SEEPING IN II
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (2002), from above
mentioned letter until the end.
Material:
Des Pres, Terrence. "Holocaust Laughter?". Writing and the Holocaust. Ed. Berel Lang.
New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988. 216-233.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
XVI. 15.02.05
THE NEW MILLENNIUM – WHAT ABOUT POLITICAL
CORRECTNESS, THOUGH?
The Holocaust in the Visual Arts.
Material:
Andreas Huyssen. "Denkmal und Erinnerung im Zeitalter der Postmoderne."
Mahnmale des Holocaust: Motive, Rituale und Stätten des Gedenkens. Ed. James E.
Young. München: Prestel, 1994. 9-17.
James E. Young. Introduction. At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in
Contemporary Art and Architecture. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. 1-11.
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