Description
How should Germany commemorate the mass murder of Jews once committed in its name? In 1997, James E. Young was invited to join a German commission appointed to find an appropriate design for a national memorial in Berlin to the European Jews killed in World War II. As the only foreigner and only Jew on the panel, Young gained a unique perspective on Germany's fraught efforts to memorialize the Holocaust. In this book, he tells for the first time the inside story of Germany's national Holocaust memorial and his own role in it.
In exploring Germany's memorial crisis, Young also asks the more general question of how a generation of contemporary artists can remember an event like the Holocaust, which it never knew directly. Young examines the works of a number of vanguard artists in America and Europe-including Art Spiegelman, Shimon Attie, David Levinthal, and Rachel Whiteread-all born after the Holocaust but indelibly shaped by its memory as passed down through memoirs, film, photographs, and museums. In the context of the moral and aesthetic questions raised by these avant-garde projects, Young offers fascinating insights into the controversy surrounding Berlin's newly opened Jewish museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, as well as Germany's soon-to-be-built national Holocaust memorial, designed by Peter Eisenman.
Illustrated with striking images in color and black-and-white, At Memory's Edge is the first book in any language to chronicle these projects and to show how we remember the Holocaust in the after-images of its history.
About the Author
James E. Young, professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is also the author of The Texture of Memory, published by Yale University Press, which won the National Jewish Book Award.
Reviews
"The brilliance of James Young's theoretical insights is matched by his outstanding knowledge of the vast array of representations of the Shoah and by his artistic and literary sensitivity. At Memory's Edge will become an influential book." Saul Friedlander "Young's book needs no extra boost, and yet this recent debate over the meaning of German nationalism gives his subject another dimension of topicality, proving again how accurately discussions of art can pinpoint all that's buried just beneath the surface of everyday life." Robert Leiter, New York Times Book Review "A beautifully written and illustrated book that tells us something profound about the featured artistic projects and their contexts." Natasha Lehrer, Jewish Quarterly "This book provides for further study of the nature and meanings of memory, and on the way contemporary artists contribute to the broad and growing discussion of what memory is." Jay Winter, Art Bulletin
Book Information
ISBN 9780300094138
Author James E. Young
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Yale University Press
Publisher Yale University Press
Weight(grams) 431g
In exploring Germany's memorial crisis, Young also asks the more general question of how a generation of contemporary artists can remember an event like the Holocaust, which it never knew directly. Young examines the works of a number of vanguard artists in America and Europe-including Art Spiegelman, Shimon Attie, David Levinthal, and Rachel Whiteread-all born after the Holocaust but indelibly shaped by its memory as passed down through memoirs, film, photographs, and museums. In the context of the moral and aesthetic questions raised by these avant-garde projects, Young offers fascinating insights into the controversy surrounding Berlin's newly opened Jewish museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, as well as Germany's soon-to-be-built national Holocaust memorial, designed by Peter Eisenman.
Illustrated with striking images in color and black-and-white, At Memory's Edge is the first book in any language to chronicle these projects and to show how we remember the Holocaust in the after-images of its history.
About the Author
James E. Young, professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is also the author of The Texture of Memory, published by Yale University Press, which won the National Jewish Book Award.
Reviews
"The brilliance of James Young's theoretical insights is matched by his outstanding knowledge of the vast array of representations of the Shoah and by his artistic and literary sensitivity. At Memory's Edge will become an influential book." Saul Friedlander "Young's book needs no extra boost, and yet this recent debate over the meaning of German nationalism gives his subject another dimension of topicality, proving again how accurately discussions of art can pinpoint all that's buried just beneath the surface of everyday life." Robert Leiter, New York Times Book Review "A beautifully written and illustrated book that tells us something profound about the featured artistic projects and their contexts." Natasha Lehrer, Jewish Quarterly "This book provides for further study of the nature and meanings of memory, and on the way contemporary artists contribute to the broad and growing discussion of what memory is." Jay Winter, Art Bulletin
Book Information
ISBN 9780300094138
Author James E. Young
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Yale University Press
Publisher Yale University Press
Weight(grams) 431g
