GE 331: German Memories of WWII - Materials
Primary Texts:
Week 1: Introduction from Bill Niven, Germans as Victims. Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2006, pp. 1-25 (downloadable at https://clas.warwick.ac.uk/Extracts/Index/GE331)
Week 2: W.G.Sebald, Luftkrieg und Literatur, Frankfurt/M., Fischer, 1999, Volker Hage, ‘Die Sebald-Debatte’ in: Volker Hage, Zeugen der Zerstörung. Die Literaten und der Luftkrieg, Frankfurt/M., Fischer, 2003, pp. 113-31.
Week 3: Roland Suso Richter, Dresden (Film)
Week 4: Günter Grass, Im Krebsgang, Munich, dtv, 2002
Week 5: Hans-Ulrich Treichel, Der Verlorene, Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp, 1998
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Uwe Timm, Am Beispiel meines Bruders, Munich, dtv, 2005
Week 8: Sönke Wortmann, Das Wunder von Bern (Film)
Week 9: Dagmar Leupold, Nach den Kriegen (Munich, dtv, 2004)
Week 10: Oliver Hirachbiegel, Der Untergang (Film, 2004)
Secondary Texts discussed in class:
In addition to the primary texts, in some classes we'll be looking at critical essays and related material to widen the context. Some of this material has been scanned and digitised by the library; it is downloadable from the address above which also includes further background reading on certain texts. Some others are available online, I have included links below.
Week 2: W.G.Sebald: 'Against the Irreversible. On Jean Améry' from On the Natural History of Destruction, pp. 149-71, downloadable at the address above.
Week 4/5/7/9/: Marianne Hirsch, 'Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory' in Yale Journal of Criticism, vol 14, 1 (2002), pp. 5-37. The article can be downloaded from the Yale Journal of Criticism website at: http://0-dx.doi.org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1353/yale.2001.0008Link opens in a new window
Week 7: (Timm): Sigrid Weigel, '"Generation" as Symbolic Form: On the Genealogical Discourse of Memory since 1945', in Germanic Review 77 (2002), pp. 264-77. The article can be downloaded from the Germanic Review website at: http://0-dx.doi.org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1080/00168890209597872Link opens in a new window
Secondary Literature:
Volker Hage, Zeugen der Zerstörung. Die Literaten und der Luftkrieg, Frankfurt, 2003.
Bill Niven, Germans as Victims. Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, Basingstoke 2006.
Aleida Assmann, Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik, Munich, 2006.
Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames, Cambridge/Mass, 1997.
Anne Fuchs, Mary Cosgrove, Georg Grote (eds.) German Memory Contests, Rochester, 2006. [online hereLink opens in a new window]
Helmut Schmitz (ed.) A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present, Amsterdam, 2007.
Stuart Taberner, Karina Berger (eds.), Germans as Victims in the Literary Fiction of the Berlin Republic, Rochester, 2009.