Jörg Echternkamp

Stephan Jaeger

Twenty-first-century views of historical violence have been immeasurably influenced by cultural representations of the Second World War. Within Europe, one of the key sites for such representation has been the vast array of museums and memorials that reflect contemporary ideas of war, the roles of soldiers and civilians, and the self-perception of those who remember. This volume takes a historical perspective on museums covering the Second World War and explores how these institutions came to define political contexts and cultures of public memory in Germany, across Europe, and throughout the world.

Representing the Second World War in German and European Museums and Memorials

Views of Violence

The Second World War is omnipresent in contemporary memory debates. As the war fades from living memory, this study is the first to systematically analyze how Second World War museums allow prototypical visitors to comprehend and experience the past. It analyzes twelve permanent exhibitions in Europe and North America – including the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden, the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, the House of European History in Brussels, the Imperial War Museums in London and Manchester, and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans – in order to show how museums reflect and shape cultural memory, as well as their cognitive, ethical, emotional, and aesthetic potential and effects. This includes a discussion of representations of events such as the Holocaust and air warfare. In relation to narrative, memory, and experience, the study develops the concept of experientiality (on a sliding scale between mimetic and structural forms), which provides a new textual-spatial method for reading exhibitions and understanding the experiences of historical individuals and collectives. It is supplemented by concepts like transnational memory, empathy, and encouraging critical thinking through difficult knowledge.

From Narrative, Memory, and Experience to Experientiality

The Second World War in the Twenty-First-Century Museum

Adam Muller

Elena Viktorovna Baraban

"Fighting Words and Images is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary and theoretical analysis of war representations across time periods from Classical Antiquity to the present day and across languages, cultures, and media including print, painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography. Featuring contributions from across the humanities and social sciences, Fighting Words and Images is organized into four thematically consistent, analytically rigourous sections that discuss ways to overcome the conceptual challenges associated with theorizing war representation. This collection creatively and insightfully explains the nature, origins, dynamics, structure, and impact of a wide variety of war representations."--Publisher's website.

Representing War Across the Disciplines

Fighting Words and Images

Elena V. Baraban

Fighting Words and Images is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary and theoretical analysis of war representations across time periods from Classical Antiquity to the present day and across languages, cultures, and media including print, painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography. Featuring contributions from across the humanities and social sciences, Fighting Words and Images is organized into four thematically consistent, analytically rigourous sections that discuss ways to overcome the conceptual challenges associated with theorizing war representation. This collection creatively and insightfully explains the nature, origins, dynamics, structure, and impact of a wide variety of war representations.

: Representing War Across the Disciplines

Daniel Fulda

In unserer Gegenwart erleben Erzähltexte mit historischen Themen wieder eine Hochkonjunktur. Das ist im ästhetisch anspruchsvollen wie im populären Feld zu beobachten, ebenso im Bereich non-fiktionaler Sachtexte und der Familien- bzw. Auto-Biographie. Welche Formen, Interessen und Funktionen sind damit verbunden? Dies prüft, konzentriert auf deutschsprachige Texte, der von einem internationalen Beiträgerkreis verfasste Band. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt auf dem, was die gegenwärtige Situation seit ca. 2000 auszeichnet. Dies sind erstens die Hybridisierung etablierter Formen des Geschichtserzählens, etwa des klassischen oder avantgardistischen historischen Romans, und die Infragestellung der Fakt-Fiktions-Grenze und zweitens neuartige kulturelle Kontexte: veränderte gesellschaftliche Orientierungsbedürfnisse, die (angebliche) Krise des modernen Geschichtsverständnisses sowie das in unserer medialisierten Gegenwart gewachsene Bedürfnis nach ‚Erfahrung‘. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt dem inner- und außerhalb der Literatur auffällig beliebten Zeitreise-Motiv. Der Band liefert die erste umfassende Untersuchung romanhaften Geschichtserzählens in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur.

Stephan Jaeger

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