Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory

How do the spaces of the past stay with us through representations—whether literary or photographic? How has the Holocaust registered in our increasingly globally connected consciousness? What does it mean that this European event is often used as an interpretive or representational touchstone for genocides and traumas globally? In this interdisciplinary study, Kaplan asks and attempts to answer these questions by looking at historically and geographically diverse spaces, photographs, and texts concerned with the physical and/or mental landscape of the Holocaust and its transformations from the postwar period to the early twenty-first century. Examining the intersections of landscape, postmemory, and trauma, Kaplan's text offers a significant contribution to our understanding of the spatial, visual, and literary reach of the Holocaust.

Brett Ashley Kaplan is an Associate Professor in the Program in Comparative and World Literature and the Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.