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Holocaust vs. Popular Culture debates and deconstructs the binary responses to the representation of the Holocaust in European and non-European forms of Popular Culture.
The binary is defined in terms of "incompatibility" between the Holocaust and Popular Culture on the one hand and the "universalization" of the Holocaust memory through Popular Culture on the other. The book does emphasize the anti-representation argument. Nevertheless, the authors make a case for a productive understanding of "Holocaust Popular Culture" as contributing to the expansion of Holocaust studies as well as cultural studies in the transnational context. The book theorizes Popular Culture in broad terms and highlights the diversity of Holocaust Popular Culture mainly but not exclusively produced in the twenty-first century. This interdisciplinary collection covers a wide variety of Popular Culture genres including language, literature, films, television shows, soap operas, music, dance, social media, advertisements, comics, graphic novels, videogames, and museums. It studies the (mis)representation of the Holocaust trauma, not only across genres but also across nations (Western and Asian) and generations (from testimonial remembrance to post-memory).
This book will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines and subjects, including Popular Culture, Holocaust studies, cultural studies, genocide studies, postcolonial and transnational studies, media and film studies, visual culture, games studies, race and ethnicity studies, memory studies, and Jewish studies.
List of contents
Holocaust versus Popular Culture: A Critical Introduction Part One: Explicating Incompatibility 1. Popular Fiction, Literary Culture, and Artistic Truth: Thane Rosenbaum's The Golems of Gotham and Twenty-First Century Holocaust Representation 2. Playing with the Unspeakable: The Holocaust and Videogames 3. Representation, Appropriation, and Popular Culture: Food and the Holocaust in Roman Polanski's The Pianist 4. Nazi Linguistics and Mass Manipulation: An Analysis of Holocaust Primary Sources vis-à-vis Popular Culture Part Two: Rethinking Universalization 5. Hitler's Popularity and the Trivialization of the Holocaust in India 6. Decoding Holocaust Narratives in Japanese Pop Culture: Through the Lens of Anne no Nikki (1995) and Persona Non Grata (2015) 7. Holocaust Representations through Popular Music: Ferramonti di Tarsia amidst Documentation, Commemoration and Mystification 8. Holocaust Museums: A Study of the Memory Policies of the USA and Poland 9. Trace and Trauma: Early Holocaust Remembrance in American and Canadian Popular Culture Part Three: In Defence of Popular Culture 10. Mothers, Daughters and the Holocaust: A Study of Miriam Katin's Graphic Memoirs 11. Superheroes and the Holocaust in American Comics 12. Unearthing the Real in the Magical: Holocaust Memory and Magic Realism in Select Post-Holocaust Fictions 13. "Once-upon-a-very-real-time": Fairy Tales and Holocaust in Jane Yolen's Novels 14. Retelling the Holocaust with Children: A Pedagogic Study of Stephen King's Apt Pupil and Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic 15. "Is it safe?": Marathon Man as Holocaust Drama 16. Child's Play, Fantasy and the Holocaust in Jojo Rabbit and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas 17. Incorrectamundo?: Holocaust, Humor, and Anti-Hate Satire in the Works of Brooks and Waititi
About the author
Mahitosh Mandal is Assistant Professor of English at Presidency University, Kolkata, India.
Priyanka Das is Assistant Professor of English at Presidency University, Kolkata, India.
Summary
Holocaust vs. Popular Culture debates and deconstructs the binary responses to the representation of the Holocaust in European and non-European forms of Popular Culture.
