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In studies of Holocaust representation and memory, scholars of literature and culture traditionally have focused on particular national contexts. At the same time, recent work has brought the Holocaust into the arena of the transnational, leading to a crossroads between localized and global understandings of Holocaust memory. Further complicating the issue are generational shifts that occur with the passage of time, and which render memory and representations of the Holocaust ever more mediated, commodified, and departicularized. Nowhere is the inquiry into Holocaust memory more fraught or potentially more productive than in German Studies, where scholars have struggled to address German guilt and responsibility while doing justice to the global impact of the Holocaust, and are increasingly facing the challenge of engaging with the broader, interdisciplinary, transnational field. Persistent Legacy connects the present, critical scholarly moment with this long disciplinary tradition, probing the relationship between German Studies and Holocaust Studies today. Fifteen prominent scholars explore how German Studies engages with Holocaust memory and representation, pursuingcritical questions concerning the borders between the two fields and how they are impacted by emerging scholarly methods, new areas of inquiry, and the changing place of Holocaust memory in contemporary Germany.
Contributors: David Bathrick, Stephan Braese, William Collins Donahue, Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Katja Garloff, Andreas Huyssen, Irene Kacandes, Jennifer M. Kapczynski, Sven Kramer, Erin McGlothlin, Leslie Morris, Brad Prager, Karen Remmler, Michael D. Richardson, Liliane Weissberg.
Erin McGlothlin and Jennifer M. Kapczynski are both Associate Professors in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis.
IN 2010 HISTORIAN ULRIKE JUREIT and psychoanalytically trained sociologist Christian Schneider launched a head-on critique of contemporary practices of Holocaust memorialization in Germany. As the title of their book—Gefühlte Opfer: Illusionen der Vergangenheitsbewältigung—indicates, they chastise what they perceive as German illusions of coming to terms with the past. In accordance with a widely shared opinion, they do not reproach the Germans for a lack of commemoration. It is, curiously enough, rather the ubiquitousness of Holocaust memory, in conjunction with the way in which the Germans nowadays commemorate the murdered Jews, that the authors find problematic. Their findings suggest an overwhelming trend toward identifying with the victims. They claim that for German practices of commemoration, “die Figur des ge fühlten Opfers” (the figure of the felt victim) proves to be “strukturbildend, denn der Wunsch der Identifizierung mit den Opfern scheint mittlerweile zur erinnerungspolitischen Norm geworden zu sein” (10; structurally formative, since the wish for identification with the victims seems in the meanwhile to have become a norm within the politics of memory). To empathize with the victims means to position oneself on their side. Jureit and Schneider claim that the Germans have thoroughly internalized this notion: they call them “Olympioniken der Betroffenheit” (19; Olympians of consternation). Their critique highlights the consequences of this identificatory mechanism, first and foremost the self-perception of moral superiority that comes with it.
According to Jureit and Schneider, the problematic point is that wherever Germans ground their self-image exclusively in empathy with the victims, they minimize the need to reflect on their forefathers’ massive support of—or even direct involvement with—the perpetrators:
Die Täter, das sind diejenigen, die nicht dazugehören …. Sie stehen außerhalb der Erinnerungsgemeinschaft …. Sie sind die Schuldigen, mit denen man nichts gemeinsam hat. Daher eignen sie sich auch hervorragend zur Dämonisierung, zur pauschalen Verurteilung als fremde Spezies, deren Taten als kaum nachvollziehbar erscheinen. (29–30)
[The perpetrators, they are the ones who do not belong …. They stand outside the commemorative community …. They are the guilty, with whom one has nothing in common. For that reason they are ideally suited to demonization, to comprehensive judgment as a foreign species, whose deeds seem hardly comprehensible.]
Fabrication of thin film nanocomposites via decomposition and self-assembly from the vapor phase is a promising path for cost-effective fabrication of multifunctional materials. In particular, oxides as a new class of energy materials allow for rich functionalities, e.g., by combining p- and n-doped systems in catalytic or light harvesting units. Combining A-site doped perovskites ABO3 with CoFe2O4 spinel, we have investigated thin film phase composition and nanocomposite morphology in the pseudobinary system La0.6Sr0.4BO3–CoFe2O4 for B = Fe, Co, and Mn. We observe formation of an epitaxial two-phase nanocomposite for B = Fe, i.e., the coexistence of La0.6Sr0.4FeO3 and CoFe2O4. In contrast, for B = Co or Mn nanocomposites are formed, where perovskite La0.6Sr0.4BO3 solid solutions coexists with Co-rich spinel and periclase phases. We derive conclusions for the preparation of perovskite-spinel nanocomposites with well-designed doping levels.
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