Genre, Gender, and Memory in Holocaust Discourses Lisa A

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2007 Who Speaks and Who Listens? Genre, Gender, and Memory in Holocaust Discourses Lisa A. Costello Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Costello, Lisa A., "Who Speaks and Who Listens? Genre, Gender, and Memory in Holocaust Discourses" (2007). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3124. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3124 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. WHO SPEAKS AND WHO LISTENS? GENRE, GENDER, AND MEMORY IN HOLOCAUST DISCOURSES A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Lisa A. Costello B.A. California State University, Long Beach 1993 M.A. California State University, Long Beach, 2002 August 2007 © Copyright 2007 Lisa A. Costello All rights reserved ii This dissertation is dedicated to Laura Hillman and to all the survivors and victims of the Holocaust. You will always be remembered. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my family, friends, mentors, and colleagues for their support of me and this project. Thanks to M/MLA for granting permission for the re-publication of my essay. To my mother and to Barry who never gave up on me and especially my mother, who was always there. And to my partner, R. M. Houser, whose love and support are constant and invaluable. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements.….…………………………..….……….…………………………........iv List of Figures.….…………………………………………….……………………………..vii Abstract……………………………………………………….…………………………….viii Introduction: Writing as Action……………………..………………………………............1 Chapter One: The Role of Performative Memorialization in Making Meaning of Discourse to Create Action………………………………..……………………….….…….13 1.1 Rationale for Text Selection…………….……..…………………….….…….15 1.2 The Elements of Performative Memorialization…………………….…..........22 1.3 Genre as Social Action……………………………………………….….........24 1.4 Gender as Social Action…………………………………………….………...31 1.5 Performance as Social Action……………………………………….………..34 1.6 Audience as Social Action………………………………………….…………41 1.7 Performative Memorialization: Locations in the Discourse Community of Holocaust Discourses…………………………………………….………....49 1.8 The Discourse Community: Locations within Holocaust Studies…….……....54 1.9 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….……....64 Chapter Two: Diaries: The Performance of Multiple Subjectivities and the Construction of Genre in Victor Klemperer’s I Will Bear Witness: a Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941, 1942-1945 (Volumes I and II) and Anne Frank’s Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl……………………………………………………………………………….….…..........68 2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………….…………..68 2.2 Rationale for Text Selection……………………………………….………….69 2.3 Victor Klemperer’s Performative Subjectivities: German and Jewish, Private and Public……………………………………………………………..78 2.4 Anne Frank’s Performative Subjectivities: Gendered as Private and Public………………………………………………………………………….86 2.5 The Construction of Genre: Shifts in Audience and Purpose from Private to Public……………………………………………………………….91 2.6 Complicating Categories: The Performative Evocation of Additional Voices………………………………………………………………………...102 2.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………106 Chapter Three: Memoirs: Performative, Gendered Subjectivities in Laura Hillman’s I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: a Memoir of a Schindler’s List Survivor and Elie Wiesel’s Night………………………………………………………………….....................................110 3.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...110 3.2 Rationale for Text Selection………………………………………………….115 3.3 Laura Hillman’s Performative Subjectivity: The Construction of Gender………………………………………………………………………...119 v 3.4 Elie Wiesel’s Performative Subjectivity: The Construction of Gender..............................................................................................................125 3.5 Performative Subjectivity: Particularized Constructions of Gender in Hillman…………………………………………………………………....129 3.6 Representational Choices in Response to Social/Historical Contexts as Performative………………………………………………………………133 3.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………...........143 Chapter Four: Museums: The Jewish Museum Berlin and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – the Interaction of Space and Narrative in Performative Memorialization…………...………………………………………………………………..145 4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..145 4.2 Locating Museums in the Chain of Communication of Holocaust Discourses……………………………………………………………………154 4.3 Architectural Space in the JMB: Daniel Libeskind’s Performative Design and Commentary…………………………………………………......159 4.4 Architectural Space in the USHMM: Implicitly Performative Spaces………173 4.5 Inside the JMB: the Interactive Exhibits as Performative and Gendered……………………………………………………………………..179 4.6 Inside the USHMM: Performative Gaps in the Complication of Categories…………………………………………………………..………...187 4.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………..…......195 Chapter Five: Hybrids: Creating Multimodal Literacies of the Holocaust – Performative Memorialization in Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale and Ruth Klüger’s Still Alive: a Holocaust Girlhood Remembered……………….…………………………………199 5.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..199 5.2 Maus: Performativity and the Construction of Genre………………………..204 5.3 Gaps in the Narrative of Maus and Responsive Understanding……………...215 5.4 Gaps in the Narrative of Still Alive and Responsive Understanding…............221 5.5 Still Alive: Performativity and the Construction of Genre and Gender: Creating Action………………………………………………………………228 5.6 Conclusion……………………………………………………………...........237 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..239 Works Consulted……………………………………………………………………...........245 Appendix: Letter of Permission to Use Copyrighted Material………………………….268 Vita…………………………………………………………………………………………..269 vi List of Figures Figure 1: The Evolution of Holocaust Discourses on the Chain of Communication. .................. 15 Figure 2: The outside of the JMB with view of cobblestone work on the ground. .................... 161 Figure 3: The Axis of Exile and the Axis of Continuity............................................................. 166 Figure 4: Outside view of JMB with Holocaust Tower to left and Garden of Exile in foreground right............................................................................................................................................. 168 Figure 5: The hallway leading to the Holocaust Tower.............................................................. 171 Figure 6: The Wheel of Life. ...................................................................................................... 183 Figure 7: Panel from Maus I....................................................................................................... 208 Figure 8: Panel from Maus I. ...................................................................................................... 212 Figure 9: Panel from Maus II...................................................................................................... 219 vii Abstract The Holocaust discourses examined in Who Speaks and Who Listens? Genre, Gender and Memory in Holocaust Discourses perform writing that does something through the presentation of meaningful content and its interaction with the process of the writing act. These discourses are utterances necessarily wedged between the past and the future—between the fear that the traumatic past of the Holocaust recedes too much and the concern with what might become of this past for the generations that follow. The theory of performative memorialization describes how multiple discourses of the Holocaust engage with each other and with the audiences that receive and respond to their testimonies. This dissertation promotes the notion of history and memory as reconstructions that interact through the collaborative tension of process and content to reveal various performative gaps or intrusions, which open spaces for audiences’ responsive understanding, enacting a unique chain of communication that creates a dialogic of history and memory. By studying how these memories of the witnesses are translated into discourse provides knowledge about how memory functions. It provides knowledge about the fallibility of memory, history, and representation, through an examination of the process of writing. Through the application of performative memorialization, this dissertation shows how discourses of the Holocaust are unique because they are increasingly multimodal, and how multimodality maintains the historical and pedagogical relevance of the Holocaust into the present, while also exhibiting the pedagogical implications of examining Holocaust discourses as texts of memorialization. viii Introduction: Writing as Action In the process of creating the composition, the work of art, the painting, the film, you’re creating the culture. You’re rewriting the culture, which is very much an activist kind of thing.

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