Description
Book SynopsisThe book traces the process of creating of a new German memory of the Holocaust after the fall of the Wall. Combining theoretical analysis with historical case studies, the book revisits crucial debates and controversial issues out of which Germany’s new ‘memory culture’ emerged as a collective project and work in progress.
Trade Review"The appearance in English of this major text by Aleida Assmann will be welcomed by all scholars of cultural memory. Shadows of Trauma, lucidly translated by Sarah Clift, offers both an important introduction to Assmann's influential thinking about how individuals and societies recall traumatic pasts and a sustained exploration of the memory of the Holocaust and World War II in the German context." -- -Michael Rothberg author of Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization "For readers of German, Shadows of Trauma is a classic in the field of memory studies. We are fortunate now to benefit from Aleida Assmann's elegant elucidation of key theoretical concepts and analysis of important debates animating the memory of the Second World War and the Holocaust in contemporary Germany. At the same time, Assmann's own original and often surprising conceptualizations of the workings of individual, social, political, and collective memory are as definitive as they are provocative and productive." -- -Marianne Hirsch Columbia University
Table of ContentsPreface to the English Language Edition Introduction Part I: Theoretical Foundations 1. From Individual to Collective Constructions of the Past 2. Basic Concepts and Themes of Individual and Collective Memory Part II: Analyses and Case Studies 3. How True are Memories? 4. False Memories: Pathologies of Identity at the End of the Twentieth Century 5. Incorrect Memories: On the Normative Power of Social Frameworks of Memory 6. Five Strategies of Represssion 7. German Narratives of Victimhood 8. Points of Intersection Between Lived Memory and Cultural Memory 9. Lieux de Memoire in Time and Space 10. The Future of Holocaust Memory 11. Europe as a Memory Community Conclusion: Shadows of Trauma Notes Bibliography Index
