Gendered Memories

Bringing together articles of international scholars from various disciplines, Gendered Memories provides a comprehensive reader focussing on the connection between mediated memories of the Holocaust and concrete medial representations, such as Israeli, German, and Austrian film and theater productions. Assuming that the different discussions on memory are interwoven, the cultural artefacts studied here critically reflect various parts of memory discourses and, by virtue of being part of these discourses themselves, share their discursive effects and flexibility. The collection of articles deals with a crucial, yet under-represented aspect within this field, the question of gender: How is memory gendered? How are media gendered? Do media ‘gender’ memory? Further questions the book addresses are: Who is supposed to remember how? How are the notions of female and male memorizing depicted in Israeli and German film and theater? How is the gendered body used as a dramatic means? Which impact does the construction of memory in fiction have on the ‘cultural memory’ of both societies and vice versa? Examining a variety of memory subjects and their changing modes, ranging from early Zionist films to contemporary Hollywood Productions, from TV documentaries to autobiographical experiments, from mainstream theater to avant-garde performance, the book gives an insight into the significance, complexities, and ambiguities of commemoration politics. And it argues for the necessity of viewing transgression as a cultural practice, be it on the level of the media themselves or on the level of critique.