New Book - Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory

I always get particularly excited when a publication comes out with "postmemory" in the title. I wrote my dissertation on postmemory in contemporary Spanish literature and film; however, I drew largely from the field of Holocaust Studies in my discussion of the intergenerational transmission of trauma.

"Postmemory" is a term popularized by -- and most associated with - Marianne Hirsch, although it was also deployed by Andrea Liss in Trespassing through Shadows: Memory, Photography and the Holocaust. I am not positive, but I do think Liss used the term first -- albeit in a slightly different manner -- which Hirsch acknowledges. Hirsch defines postmemory as "the experience of those who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are displaced by the stories of the previous generation, shaped by traumatic events taht they can neither understand nor re-create" ("Projected Memory: Holocaust Photographs in Personal and Public Fantasy," 8). In addition to Hirsch's formulation, Holocaust Studies scholars have created a large, rich body of work on "second generation" cultural production, with "second generation" referring broadly to the descendants of Holocaust survivors (and yes, at times, also to the descendants of perpetrators).

At some point, I will dedicate another post (or several) to the concept of "postmemory" itself, which has recently come under fire in Beatriz Sarlo's Tiempo pasado. Cultura de la memoria y giro subjetivo. Una discusión (to read an excellent review in English of Sarlo's work, see here). For now, I will limit this post to the mention of the following new book from Routledge:

Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory

By Brett Kaplan

Series: Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies

List Price: $95.00
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* ISBN: 978-0-415-87476-2
* Binding: Hardback
* Published by: Routledge
* Publication Date: 31/08/2010
* Pages: 192

About the Book

How do the spaces of the past stay with us through representations—whether literary or photographic? How has the Holocaust registered in our increasingly globally connected consciousness? What does it mean that this European event is often used as an interpretive or representational touchstone for genocides and traumas globally? In this interdisciplinary study, Kaplan asks and attempts to answer these questions by looking at historically and geographically diverse spaces, photographs, and texts concerned with the physical and/or mental landscape of the Holocaust and its transformations from the postwar period to the early twenty-first century. Examining the intersections of landscape, postmemory, and trauma, Kaplan's text offers a significant contribution to our understanding of the spatial, visual, and literary reach of the Holocaust.