Ampersand: Representations of the Holocaust in Literature and Film

3 units

As the Holocaust recedes into the historical past, our knowledge of the event becomes increasingly dominated by literary and cinematic representations of it. This course focuses on such depictions of the Holocaust in literature and film and raises a number of provocative questions: What does it mean to represent the horror of the Holocaust, and how can literary works and films adequately do so? Can one effectively depict the event in realistic terms, or do unrealistic representations work better? What happens to the history of the Holocaust when it becomes the subject of a fictional text? Who is authorized to speak for the victims? Are representations of perpetrators appropriate? Which experiences of the Holocaust are most often represented in the contemporary public imagination, and which are ignored or repressed? Can one speak of a "master narrative" of the Holocaust? We will grapple with these challenging questions by examining representations in a range of genres and media, including survivor memoirs, wartime accounts, journalistic explorations, fictional narratives, a graphic novel, art and photography, documentary and feature film, museums and memorial sites, and social media. Reserved for first-year students enrolled in the Ampersand Program on the History, Memory, and Representation of the Holocaust.